Here is a new feature I'm starting at Dynamic Meter, the Monday playlist. It's a group of songs to help you get through the week with a little rocking goodness. I'll also connect it to big events of the week. So of course this week we have Martin Luther King, Junior's Birthday and Barack Obama's inauguration. So I've added some tunes in that reflect this. And others that I just dig. I hope you enjoy!
Wow. Tuesday. Barack Obama elected. It's all so amazing. I actually met Obama in 1996 while living in Chicago (SOUTHSIDE!). I was working with inner city youth and he was just getting his start in politics. What impressed my most was that he really listened to what we had to say.
For the last 8 years, I have felt out of step with America. As a Christian, I have seen my faith twisted by Bush and his other right wing cronies, turning a message of love into a massage of fear. As a progressive, I simply wondered if there was any possibility of a return to a politics and a nation that had an actual concern for its citizens and people around the world, especially the most vulnerable.
Tuesday night listening to Barack Obama with tears running down my face, I had my faith restored. I felt perhaps now is our chance to really make things better. Certainly there is much work to be done. But now it seems possible. Now there is hope. And when I kiss my kids goodnight, hope and love is what I want for them. And for the world.
Here is a little playlist for Hope and Change.
Wow! Take Beck and mix in Danger Mouse and Cat Power and you get “Walls” off Modern Guilt. While I’m loving the whole record, “Walls” has become my latest musical obsession.
Thankfully, repeat and headphones exists. The beats, melody, and lyrics work so well together. This song is dark and speaks to the lassitude that so many of us in our country feel now. “Some days we get a thrill in our brains / Some days it turns into malaise / You see your face in the veneer / Reflected on the surface of fear,” the songs open.
Thinking about this song after listening to Barack Obama’s amazing speech last night, I can’t help but to feel how this song, and really the whole album, is a reflection of our lives after 8 years of W—and damage that has been done to us and the rest of the world, not just physically or financially, but more important spiritually.
Here’s a live version of the tune from the Outside Lands Festival.
