A Collection of Singular Songs to Lift Your Spirit
What do songwriters and musicians do when feeling scared, alone, depressed, anxious or worse? Listen to music, of course. In good times and those not so good, songs are our friends. They’re dependable. Great songs and records are consistently helpful and even healing when negotiating with this human expedition, especially when times get dark, uncertain and even potentially perilous, as they are now. What follows is a collection of songs chosen to lift the spirits of anyone needing a lift.
They are all momentous songs of much passion, soul and inspiration. Some are what might be considered “pick me up” songs, though not all. Some are quite famous; some are obscure. But they all share the spark of songwriting fire, alive and timeless with the heartfelt brilliance of a great songwriter.
No doubt there are so many reading this today who have been self-quarantining for years, though we didn’t call it that, or “social distancing,” to describe the understandable urge of songwriters and musicians to get away from all the other humans to be alone with the music.
Whether these isolations were desired, or imposed, what matters is that music sure went a long way in filling in those gaps of solitude, especially when fear, anxiety, sorrow and worse infected us. And at times that meaning seemed to be absent from most things, and despite our best efforts, determining what the moral is to the current story can be tough to determine. But songs help us make sense of the chaos. Even if our understanding of events remains murky, songs go a long way in putting things into place, and bolstering our lonely souls.
So we are happy to provide you this, today, a big bunch of timeless songs and performances ideal for these days of house arrest.
Here’s our first volume of songs for this Sunday of Solitude in America, posted with love for all songwriters and lovers of song, and with gratitude that we have all this timeless art at our fingertips. Some are very famous; some are quite obscure. All are great. In our never-humble opinion, that is. If you disagree, simply skip to the next one.
Stay healthy. Sing, dance, write new songs, and keep hope alive.
