The AWESOME! page has random music stuff that I think is cool. You never know what you will find here!
People who know about my “Music Mania” know that I have many songs that are “my all time favorite.” That’s the running joke – my all time favorite song changes based on what might be playing at any given time. The same is true about my favorite albums and favorite artists. I just can’t give you a favorite – it seems that there is a long list of songs/albums/artists that are tied for the best.
My “Greatest Song Ever” goes across many types of music. From prog rock (Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb) to classic rock (many, including Meatloaf’s Paradise By the Dashboard Light, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s Blinded By the Light, The Guess Who’s No Time, many more) to country covers (Johnny Cash’s Hurt) to classical (Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3) to techno (Kaskade & Deadmau5’s Move For Me) – they are all equally my favorite.
No doubt you would mock me for some of them – trust me, many have. That’s OK – one of the great things about music is how it affects different people in different ways. I will always respect someone’s opinion about what they love about a song, even if it doesn’t get to me the same way.
In the last year or so, I’ve found myself listening to more acoustic indie music. In July 2019, I stumbled across a song by Sufjan Stevens that he released in 2015, titled Should Have Known Better. I saved it to my “indie” playlist. And in March 2020, I decided to listen to the whole album, titled Carrie & Lowell. Now completely hooked, I read the backstory on Stevens, the album and the song. Too lengthy to go into much detail (Carrie was Steven’s mother who abandoned him as a child and Lowell is the man who subsequently married Carrie and encouraged Carrie to reconnect with her children. Carrie’s died in 2012, and Stevens wrote the album to provide closure to her death) – the song Should Have Known Better now has become another All Time Favorite Song.
I hope you take a few minutes to listen to this beautiful song. It is very sad, but with a simple change in melody, it becomes a very happy song about two-thirds of the way through it. If you are so inclined, check out the lyrics to appreciate it even more. And if it moves you, then stream or buy the whole album. You’ll be glad you did. Enjoy.