The Church of Bruce, Bono, and Leonard

I've read that Frank Zappa said "Music is the only religion that delivers."  I've often said, only half-jokingly, that if I could get the feeling in church that I get from some music, I'd never miss a Sunday.


Music is the balm for my soul. There are songs that I hear, and I react viscerally, from some part of me I cannot name.  I feel a power, a sense of something bigger than me. . When I hear U2's With or Without You or Bad, especially live, well, I just don't have adequate words for how it makes me feel.


And the genius that is Leonard Cohen.  His Hallelujah is one of the most poetic, stirring, moving and sensual songs I've ever heard.  His simple "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in" from Anthem. 


The hopefulness, the feeling that things will be a little better with Bruce Springsteen's The Rising. And the anthem of Born To Run.  Bruce Springsteen performing I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For with U2. Bruce and Tom Morello giving us a whole new take on The Ghost of Tom Joad.  Really, anything in the Boss' catalog.


Johnny Cash, with his "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die" to covering Nine Inch Nails' Hurt in a such a poignant way, with the crescendo of the piano.  The man without whom we wouldn't have much of the music we have today.


My heart breaks a little every time I hear The Pogues' Love You Til the End- and at the same time, it makes me believe in romance.  Elvis Presley  singing You Were Always on My Mind.  The first time I heard Falling Slowly and I had to stop and look up Glen Hansard and wonder how it was I didn't know about him until that moment.


Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Pachelbel's Canon in D.No lyrics, but soul stirring none the less.  


I have a soundtrack for everything. The songs that make me want to work out. The songs that make me want to dance. The songs that bring out my inner badass. The songs that make me say it is time to challenge the status quo. Songs that make me want to be a rebel, to find that liberation that only rock and roll brings. Songs that simply make a car trip more enjoyable.  I could go on and on.  I won't. I have a soundtrack to create.