Happy Anniversary, HOF!

This is about three weeks late, but October 2011 was when I started my song "Hall of Fame" on Spotify. I didn't really get things going until a few years later, but 10 years ago started it all. Please understand. I might be the only one who ever sees this blog. I may be the only one who knows my song hall of fame (I don't share it... yet).. But for someone who is a year into an ADHD diagnosis and always wondered why I could never consistantly write a journal, this is the closest thing I ever have come to doing a concerntrated personal project that has lasted over a year. It totally makes sense that music is that driver of this... next to my faith and family, it is most important to me. 

So. We'll see how long I keep the HOF going.. and if i have the money to keep Spotify Premium :)   
We'll see if I can ever reach my goal of writing about each of these songs. Time will tell. But it has been a fun journey, and maybe this will be the thing that helps give me hope when/if I am elderly and looking back at my life. One of my life's themes has been "anxiety" and a failure to really "seize the day", but in compiling these memories and thoughts, maybe I will realize I have really lived a more meaningful life than I have thought. 

Josh 

Song #50 - Grammatrain - "Jonah"

Inducted Jan. 19, 2016

Wow.. #50. By the end of this year (2021), I will have 170 songs (17 songs for 10 years) inducted. So I am not even a third of the way in blogging these songs. I hope I get there. 

Jonah was released again in my high school years (July 1997). I forget if I mentioned this already, but I listened to a radio show that came out on Saturday nights(? or maybe fridays) called Z-JAM. It was a syndicated show that played on our Christian Station, 99.3 WJQ, in west michigan. It played music that I was definitely more interested - harder, rockier, more alternative songs than the traditional CCM that WJQ played. That's how I got exposed to a lot of the bands that 90's Christian Teens enjoyed. Grammatrain was awesome. Most Christian Bands were essentially copies of secular acts that were popular at the time. I don't know enough to know what Grammatrain's secular equivalent was, but they come from the Seattle scene and it's equivalent didn't matter to me.. their FLYING album was AWESOME. I LOVED it. And this was my favorite song by far. Again, the whole idea of "think I'm drowning and the ocean's raging" really made sense to adolescent Josh. This song/album came out as I started my senior year of high school, which was such a weird time for me. I was a kid who didn't fit in very well. All of us in Grand Haven High School were in a brand new school building that was less than a mile and a half from my house, and I got my first taste of a leadership role after being elected vice president of the First Priority Christian Club in September of that year. I think I shared that story already of how I was elected, but I felt it was a pity vote. Anyway.. i could write so much about that particular year.  

I love Pete Stewart's voice, and followed Grammatrain's progression through the years. I've followed Pete Stewart's journey away from faith. I'm so curious about people's individual's stories, and Stewart's fascinates me. Side Note: Grammatrain wrote a song for the Seattle Sounders MLS team before MLS really became super popular this decade. You should hunt it down.      

Elements I like: 

The guitar and opening riff.. 

The violin (cello?) at the end of the song.. 

Frantic Drumming here.. love it!!

How the song ends.. 

SONG #49 - Sophie B. Hawkins - As I Lay Me Down

 Inducted on Dec. 21, 2015

Another angsty jr high/high school "wish I had someone to love" song. It's another song that simultaneously made me aware that I was lonely while also comforting me in the midst of my loneliness.
I thought it's kind of an interesting technique of using the beginning of the nighttime prayer (that I always prayed as a kid) as the hook of a love song. Pretty clever. Her voice is earthy yet ethereal (contradiction?).

Part of the package with Sophie B Hawkins was that she was the singer of Damn I wish your Lover, which was so naughty to a lutheran boy raised in heavily Dutch Reformed area of West Michigan. I became obsessed with another song of hers - Right Beside You - which I just entered into the Hall of Fame (11/2021). Also, I got caught up in the controversy of her third album, where she REFUSED like a bad-ass to take the banjo off of her single "Lose Your Way". Her record label thought it wouldn't be received well with the banjo, but she did not change it. Because of these things I remember just being curious about her life and reading in college that she was an Omnisexual (in 2021 terms it seems like its the equivalent of pansexuality), and it was incredibly fascinating to me as someone who was fascinated by sex/sexuality and trying to understand my own feelings.   

It's funnier now that one of my favorite shows, Community, paid tribute to her with the episode where the college hosted a "Sophie B Hawkins" dance (instead of a Sadie Hawkins dance). Hilarious, and so awesome that she made an appearance. She is also part of GOProud, which is a group of LGBT people who are Republicans, which I always find to be an interesting dynamic. 

Anyway. That's a sample of how in my mind how a person's reception of a particular song can be directly influenced by their perception of the artist who records it. Have you NEVER given a song a chance because Taylor Swift sang it, and you HATE Taylor Swift and just assume she'll never write a song you like? Or because an artist has different politics than you or a lifestyle you don't agree with? That's a fascinating concept I could write a lot about.   

Anyway.. it was such a beautiful song and was on top of my personal favorite songs as a young man for a long long time. 

Elements of the song I Love: 

The little wood block and shaker or whatever sounds are at the beginning, and then the single keyboard chord that's being played. Beautiful entry. 

The song really builds the first two minutes.. the bridge is PHENOMENAL.. You can just feel her passion when she belts out.. "Every season has it's change, and I will see you when the sun comes out again"...

The "ad-libbing" at the end.. "When the sun comes out again, when the sun comes out again.. comes out.. comes out..."