Music is an expression of Love. Below you will find some music that I’ve collected, with the hopes that you’ll feel the Love when you listen to them. Some you will have heard before and some maybe not. Please enjoy!
It was difficult to choose one single song from this album, but this one was always my personal favorite. The album is “Make Yourself,” and it is an epic, diverse yet unified message of Love. I recommend you listen to it.
The hit single, “Drive” is a directive to figuratively “take the wheel and steer,” your own life. The title track, “Make Yourself,” is literally about making yourself — you are the creator of your reality.
This track, “The Warmth,” is an internal struggle between the instinct to “leave in my wake a trail of fear,” and the aspiration to “leave the air behind me clear.” It’s an uplifting message when the world’s got you down.
From a youtube comment:
because of this song i am still alive :’ )
-caba113ro
So don’t let the world bring you down.
Not everyone here is that f***d up and cold.
Remember why you came, and while you’re alive,
experience the warmth before you go.
This is just a beautiful song. It’s a duet between two singers: G.Love and Tristan Prettyman. I don’t know exactly what it’s about, and some of the lyrics are a bit silly (in a good way). But the name does it justice: it’s a beautiful song. Hope you enjoy.
With 60 Million+ views on Youtube, chances are you might have seen this one before. But if not, watch it! It’s the true story of this dude who decided to spread the Love by giving free hugs to strangers, and then was banned from doing so. Watch the video to see how it ends.
And if you have seen it, watch it again. It’s too inspiring not to.
And here is a follow-up video made by Juan Mann, the dude (mentioned above) that started the whole thing. He’s brilliantly taken the momentum from the original Free Hugs campaign and created two sites to help people help people. I’ll let him explain:
There has been thousands of emails from all over the world from people seeking to participate in the Free Hugs Campaign and asking for permission. You don’t need permission. This is the people’s movement, this is *your* movement. With nothing but your bare hands you CAN make a difference.
This is the most amazing thing I have seen this year. I keep watching it and every damn time it makes me tear up, and shake my head in disbelief at how powerful it is.
PLEASE, do yourself the favor of dedicating your full attention to this. It takes 5 minutes, which is an eternity here on the internet, I know. But I’d love for you to get the full impact of the passion she sings with, and you need to watch her body language, her face, her backup singers, as they build the emotion. So beautiful!
Yes, my web site is called “Practice Love” and I am featuring a song by Eminem. I feel that this one will require some explanation, so I have prepared my case below, and the song, “Beautiful,” is embedded at the end.
The general public seems to regard Eminem as an angry, hateful, ignorant psychopath. Anyone who holds this view has obviously never studied his full body of work, and likely formed their opinion based on sensationalist headlines from the mainstream media. I intend to show that in fact he is an intelligent, self-aware, talented but misunderstood artist. And he does have Love in his heart.
Talent
Marshall Mathers (stage name: Eminem) is in my opinion one of the greatest lyricists ever. In the song “Rabbit Run,” he declares:
Want me to flip it? I can rip it any style you want.
…and it’s the truth. I have never heard such a breadth of styles (within the hip-hop format) from one artist. He’s done an entire song in baby-talk, speaking to his infant daughter ( “‘97 Bonnie & Clyde” ) and often does entire songs in specific intricate syncopated beats ( “The Way I Am”, “Cleaning Out My Closet” ). He’s done one where the whole song is a conversation between a man and his conscience (played by Dr. Dre in “Guilty Conscience”). Perhaps most impressive is his ability to develop multiple-syllable rhyming patterns and keep them going through an entire verse, combined with his utterly unique delivery style. Example from ( “Lose Yourself” ):
Snap back to reality
Oh \ there GOES gravity
Oh \ there GOES Rabbit he
Choked \ he’s SO mad but he
Won’t \ give UP that easy
Nope \ he WON’T have it he
Knows \ his WHOLE back’s to these
Ropes \ it DON’T matter he’s
Dope \ he KNOWS that but he’s
Broke \ he’s SO sad that he
Knows \ when he GOES back to this
Mo- \ -bile HOME that’s when it’s
(Back \ to the lab again)
Yo \ this WHOLE rap s**t he
(better go capture this moment and)
Hope \ it DON’T pass him
Love
Okay, so he’s talented. But is he respectable? I argue yes. Sure, he has rapped about violent things, such as killing his wife, or wishing his mother to “burn in hell”. There are two reasons why this doesn’t phase me:
The Persona
1) People take his words much too seriously. People think that he’s speaking literally and simply, which is not the case. In fact, Marshall Mathers is extremely intelligent, and has a depth to his expression that many will never appreciate. He’s very self-aware, and half of the things he says are fabrications of the stage persona. From “Sing for the Moment”:
Now you probably get this picture from my public persona
that I’m a pistol-packing drug addict, who bags on his mama.
But I wanna just take this time out to be perfectly honest…
Elsewhere in the song:
It’s all political,
if my music was literal,
and I’m a criminal,
how the f*** could I raise a little girl?
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be fit to.
He understands what the masses’ misconceptions of him are, and pokes fun at the whole thing in “Role Model”:
Okay, I’m going to attempt to drown myself. You can try this at home. You can be just like me.
If you don’t understand that as being tongue-in-cheek, check again. Later in the song:
Some people only see that I’m white, ignoring skill,
cause I stand out, like a green hat with an orange bill,
but I don’t get pissed,
y’all don’t even see through the mist.
How the f*** can I be white?
I don’t even exist.
“I don’t even exist,” means the stage persona, Eminem, is a character invented for entertainment purposes. If you hate Mr. Mathers for inventing this character, do you also hate Stephen King for inventing the characters in his books designed to scare you for entertainment purposes?
The Legitimately Troubled Man Behind the Persona
2) Marshall Mathers never actually killed his wife or did any of those terrible things. What he did was to cathartically express his inner anger about his life. We all have anger, and some never let it out — the “ticking time bomb” scenario, which is all too common today. I think it’s healthy to express anger, when it comes up, in a non-destructive way. In Em’s own words ( “Sing for the Moment” ):
But music is reflection of self–
we just explain it,
and then we get our checks in the mail,
it’s f***d up ain’t it?
So he’s expressing what’s inside. And if you listen to the full body of work, you realize that he in fact has a lot to be angry about. For example, from “Cleaning Out My Closet”:
…goin’ through public housing systems,
victim of Munchausen syndrome —
My whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn’t…
There’s more in other songs, and some of it is even more disturbing. But I say, keep at it, Marshall. Keep cleaning out your closet if it helps to get the past off your chest (and entertain us with your word wizardry as you do). From “Medicine Ball”:
I guess it’s time
For you to hate me again.
Let’s begin,
now hand me the pen…
The world is just my medicine ball, you’re all in
The “Medicine Ball,” meaning that this expression of intentionally controversial material is his catharsis, his release, his medicine.
Beautiful
So for a song to highlight I chose “Beautiful.” This is on the most recent album, “Relapse.” It’s the only song on the album that Marshall produced completely by himself — Dr. Dre was producer or co-producer on all the rest. So I look at it as his most personal statement on the album. It’s about his troubles feeling like a normal person while being famous. It’s about walking a thousand miles in each other’s shoes. It’s about how we all have pain inside sometimes. It’s about how we’re all beautiful.
You’d have to walk a thousand miles
In my shoes
just to see
what it’s like
to be me
I’ll be you
let’s trade shoes
just to see what it’d be like to
feel your pain,
you feel mine
go inside
each other’s minds
just to see
what we find
look at s**t throuh each other’s eyes.
Warning: explicit lyrics. Don’t press play if “bad words” offend you.
There’s a beautiful message in there somewhere. Of course, he’s got to say it with the classic Eminem ‘hard-edged’ twist:
Don’t let them say you aren’t beautiful.
They can all get f***d, just stay true to you.
This is one of those genre-defying songs. It’s a hip-hop song, but it’s one that all the “I like everything except country and rap”-type people can appreciate. It’s slow, with a distinct musicality to it, and the message is heart-felt and moving.
This is such a unique and creative song, you just have to listen to it. Listen closely to the voice sample. Yes, it’s a “spacewalk”, but it works on another layer as well. If you’re up-to-date on all your pop psychology/self help/”spirituality” knowledge, you may recognize the story line:
Okay, I’m letting go.
I’m starting to drift away.
It really is dark out here.
How am I doin’? (You’re doing fine.)
I’m beginning to see a point of light on the horizon.
It’s getting larger.
I’m getting some pretty good oscillations.
It’s coming quicker now, it’s really going.
Any second now, it’s coming…
I hope this gives you good vibes like it does to me. “Beautiful, just beautiful. Zero Gs, and I feel fine.”
The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) was a very conceptual album. Each song represented an aspect of modern life. “Money” is a famous and obvious example. This song, “The Great Gig in the Sky,” was the one about death. It was the last song on the first side of the record. The first song on the second side was “Money.”
This album is one single piece of music, and it is one of the greatest that we know of. This song is our favorite segment. We think it is absolutely beautiful, even hundreds of listens later:
And I am not afraid of dying. Any time will do, I don’t mind. Why should I be afraid to die? There’s no reason for it. You’ve got to go some time.
OK, maybe THIS was the song that started it all. Standing in a packed concert venue, hearing this song played live, hearing the entire crowd join in, chanting “love is my religion,” considering within whether I could say it truthfully, deciding yes and joining in… was a VERY profound experience. Go see Ziggy if you ever get the chance.
“I don’t condemn, I don’t convert.”
“No one is gonna lose their soul.”
“All you need is Love.”
“Love is my Religion.”
You can't do yoga.Yoga is your natural state.You can do yoga exercises;it may reveal where you're resisting your natural state~SharonGannonabout 8 months agofrom web
At times I forget to do what I myself once professed: Stop, close eyes, breath DEEP, smile. What a feeling.about 10 months agofrom TweetDeck
I think it's valuable to go "off the deep end" for a while, then step back and reassess. Sometimes good nuggets hide in the deep end.about 12 months agofrom web
“That which is seeking is that which is being sought.”
