Play Me An Upbeat Song, Mr. Pianoman

My Husband & I newly married.

I have always used music to soothe a broken heart.  There was a guy I was mad for back in college who only had an eye for my friend and to him I brutally sang a lot of Fiona Apple in the shower.  Or the first boy I ever kissed who decided his senior year he'd rather "be free like a bird" (a rare breed called the Horned Raven I believe), and for him Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast At Tiffany's" was the lyrical razor blade of choice.  For the breakup with my first love I listened to Dave Matthew's "Two Step" nearly two million times.  Then along my 1000-mile Camino hike this summer, Adele's latest angst-y offerings set fire to my 'leave love's past behind' heels.

Music is a wonderful retreat.  It can allow you to wallow if you like to muck around in the pain a bit.  Or it can help you get over someone - there's not a one of us who hasn't sung out loud the ultimate Clarkson anthem "Since You've Been Gone" to an imaginary Mr. or Ms. D-Bag.  Since the dawn of music, we've been rhythmically lamenting love as a species. 

But this begs the question: What do you do when you're happy in love?  After 30 years of the ups and downs of romance I have found my soulmate.  I simply can't relish in Lana Del Ray's new bittersweet album like I should be.  You'd think missing my Belgian husband during this green card process would spark it in me, but I really just need a damn pick-me-up!  Where are the non sullen love songs?  Do they even exist?  Maybe I just need to start thumbing through my grandma's old records to the crooners and Motowners of old.  Even when Bobby Darin sung about killing his love by holding her under water, he did it with such a cheerful, aw-shucks spirit you couldn't help but feel elated for the guy.  There was such an upbeat spin on depressing lyrics back then... Sigh.

Really, though, I'm not looking for love lyrics necessarily.  Just some suggestions of happy-go-lucky music ("The Dog Days Are Over" can't be it, can it?) that will let me revel in my new found true love.  I'm all ears... but only if it'll put a smile on my face.

Some days I'm crippled by the most intense desire and exquisite longing for places I've yet to travel, people I've yet to meet, dreams that have yet to be fulfilled and lives I have yet to live. No song has ever touched on this element of my character, which is a little darker and a bit more difficult to comprehend, than this song, "Guaranteed" from songwriter Eddie Vedder and the movie "Into the Wild." Amazing. Beautiful. And so much a part of me, it aches to hear it. I know I rarely go to such cheesy lengths, but I had to share...

"On bended knee is no way to be free
Lifting up an empty cup, I ask silently
All my destinations will accept the one that's me
So I can breathe...

Circles they grow and they swallow people whole
Half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know
A mind full of questions, and a teacher in my soul
And so it goes...

Don't come closer or I'll have to go
Holding me like gravity are places that pull
If ever there was someone to keep me at home
It would be you...

Everyone I come across, in cages they bought
They think of me and my wandering, but I'm never what they thought
I've got my indignation, but I'm pure in all my thoughts
I'm alive...

Wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere
Underneath my being is a road that disappeared
Late at night I hear the trees, they're singing with the dead
Overhead...

Leave it to me as I find a way to be
Consider me a satellite, forever orbiting
I knew all the rules, but the rules did not know me
Guaranteed"

Check out the video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3SxCph5I1Q