The Blog Less Traveled

I was going through my music collection on iTunes the other day and thought I’d take a look at the songs that I played the most or ranked the highest. Below, in alphabetical order, are 40 or so songs that made the first cut. I’m sure if I took more time or dug more deeply into my 9000 or so songs, I’d probably add or replace a few of these. I tried to strike a balance among several genres. They run the gamut from Instrumental (Yanni and Enya) to Easy Listening (Joni Mitchell and Cat Stevens) to Rock (Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Metallica). About the only thing you won’t find is Country. I do have a few Country songs that I like, but none are at the top of my playlists.

• All Along The Watch Tower – Jimi Hendrix
• Baker Street – Gerry Rafferty
• Born In Time – Eric Clapton
• Boulevard Of Broken Dreams – Green Day
• The Boxer – Simon & Garfunkel
• Broken Wings – Mr. Mister
• Diamonds & Rust – Joni Mitchell
• Drive – The Cars
• Dust in the Wind – Kansas
• Far Away – Nickelback
• Fire and Rain – James Taylor
• Fred Baer – Ted Nugent
• Good Heart – Jefferson Starship
• Hey Jude – The Beatles
• Hotel California – The Eagles
• The House Of The Rising Sun – The Animals
• I Just Want You – Ozzie Osbourne
• I’ll Remember – Madonna
• I’m Your Captain/Closer to Home – Grand Funk Railroad
• I Ran – Flock of Seagulls
• Layla – Derek and the Dominos
• Learn To Fly – Foo Fighters
• The Logical Song – Supertramp
• Nights In White Satin – The Moody Blues
• Nothing Else Matters – Metallica
• Old Man – Neil Young
• Only Wanna Be With You – Hootie & The Blowfish
• Owner Of a Lonely Heart – Yes
• Peace Train – Cat Stevens
• Pinball Wizard – The Who
• River Flows In You – Yiruma
• Mr Roboto – Styx
• Runnin’ Down A Dream – Tom Petty
• Sky Pilot – Erick Burdon
• Slide – The Goo Goo Dolls
• So Far Away – Staind
• Stairway to Heaven – Led Zeppelin
• Sultans of Swing – Dire Straits
• Time Has Come Today – The Chambers Brothers
• To The One Who Knows – Yanni
• Watermark – Enya
• White Wedding – Billy Idol
• Whole Lotta Love – Led Zeppelin
• White Room – The Cream
• You Wreck Me – Tom Petty

Within Temptation is a Dutch band that hails from the Netherlands. Their musical genre can best be described as symphonic rock. There’s definitely a good dose of orchestra backup on many of their songs. They began as a musical group back in 1996 while they were still in college. The main singer is Sharon Den Adel and she has an outstanding voice with quite a vocal range. They’ve released about a half-dozen albums so far. In 2008, they performed live with the Metropole Orchestra in Rotterdam and released an album called Black Symphony. Based on some of the video recordings available on YouTube, it was a pretty spectacular event with quite a pyrotechnic display throughout the concert.

If you’re looking for a little change of pace in your musical repertoire, this band is definitely worth a listen. Some of their videos are pretty cool. Below are three of my favorites.

• Mother Earth
• Jillian (I’d Give My Heart)
• Deceiver of Fools (This song has a long intro but it gets really good about 2:10 into the song when the French Horns start.)

To go to their official website, click here.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately on my computer. There are a ton of books out there in electronic format. Many of the books are in the familiar Adobe pdf format that can be read by many Windows and Mac ebook readers. There is also the open standard epub format as well as a plethora of proprietary formats with various forms of Digital Rights Management (DRM). The library system in our area carries many books in electronic format and that makes it easy and convenient for checking out and reading. I’ve checked out a few in the past week or two. No need to trudge to the library if you don’t want to – a book is just a few clicks away! Ah, but I digress.

Although my musical roots are in rock music, it’s not too conducive when you’re trying to read a book, especially if you’re trying to comprehend technical material. For reading books, I select easy listening- or instrumental-type music for a background. I was going through my iTunes library the other day and came across some albums that I hadn’t listened to in years. When my wife and I lived in Monterey, CA, we would visit various vineyards and local wine tasting rooms. Many had background music playing and many of those CDs were available for purchase. Danny Wright was one of the first artists we became acquainted with as a result of those little trips. Another was Jim Centorino and Carole Cole. They made a CD called Footsteps in the Sand back in 1990. My three favorite songs are below. I couldn’t find any YouTube versions for Ultimately Love or Ancient Romance. I put these songs on my local server so you could still listen to them. The Child of Dreams link will take you to YouTube. BTW, the YouTube link displays the title of the song as, Ultimately Love, but it’s really Child of Dreams. In looking at the liner notes on the CD, I noticed that all three songs I chose were composed and produced by Jim Centorino. I guess I like Jim’s compositions over Carol’s. Anyway, enjoy the songs.

• Child of Dreams (my favorite)
• Ultimately Love
• Ancient Romance

Here’s some interesting music if you’re ready for a change of pace. This music would probably fall under the genre of Electronic/Indie. I’ve been listening to a few new groups lately like Moby, Flow Machines and now, The Knife. The Knife are a musical duo from Sweden. The band consists of siblings Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer. To say they’re a little different would be an understatement. They pretty much shun most public appearances. Even when they win Grammys for their work, they don’t ever show up for the award presentations. They’re more or less anti-mainstream media and have their own record label, Rabid Records. The picture above is from an interview they did for a station in Stockholm, Sweden.

Below are three of my favorite songs from their albums. The links will take you to the YouTube versions of the songs. Be forewarned though. Some of the videos are pretty bizarre but worth a look. Enjoy.

1. Silent Shout

2. Pass This On

3. Marble House

For their official website, click here.

For their Wikipedia entry, click here.

I’m a hard rocker at heart, but I do enjoy almost any style of music. Recently, I’ve been listening to a lot of instrumental and mellow music. At the risk of being shot by my hard rocker friends, I’ve been listening to Enya, Danny Wright, Yanni and Nobuo Uematsu. For sure though, no Barry Manilow – Ha Ha!! Anyway, I was poking around on YouTube the other day and came across another musician whose music I thoroughly enjoy. His name is Yiruma and he’s a South Korean pianist and composer. There’s not a lot about him that I can find on the Internet. From what I can tell, he’s currently serving in the Korean Navy. Military service is mandatory for all male Koreans. He has several albums on iTunes. I found one album of his that was pretty funny called “Puppy Dung”. I think it’s a soundtrack for some animation video.

Below are my three favorite songs, thus far. The links will take you to the YouTube versions of the songs. If you’re familiar with Yanni’s song, “In The Mirror”, Yiruma’s song, “River Flows In You”, is somewhat similar but the tempo is not quite as fast. A very pretty melody – good fireplace music.

River Flows In You (my favorite)

Kiss The Rain

May Be

For Yiruma’s Wikipedia entry, click here.

I was moseying around on the iTunes store the other day and came across a musician called Nobuo Uematsu. He’s a Japanese video game composer and he’s best known for creating the musical scores for most of the Final Fantasy video games. He has some very interesting music and some of his work has been performed by some major symphony orchestras. Although I wouldn’t be too inclined to purchase the entire soundtrack album for one of these video games, there are some very nice piano and woodwind pieces worth listening to. He reminds me a lot of Danny Wright if you’re into piano solos. Below are three of my favorite songs from his collection. The links will take you to YouTube versions of the songs.

For more information on Nobuo Uematsu, click here.

1. Tifa’s Theme from Final Fantasy VII (my personal favorite)

2. To Zanarkand from Final Fantasy X

3. Aerith’s Theme from Final Fantasy VII

Staind is an American alternative rock band from Massachusetts. The band was formed in 1995. They’ve produced a total of five studio albums during this time and came out with a greatest hits album in 2006 titled, The Singles Collection. Their greatest hits album is definitely worth purchasing. Their best-selling album by far was their 2001 release of Break The Cycle. This produced several hit singles including the very popular, It’s Been Awhile. However, my favorite song, So Far Away, is from their fourth album, 14 Shades of Grey. They’re scheduled to release a new album later this Summer.

To see their So Far Away music video, click here.

For more information on Staind, click here.

3 Doors Down is an American rock band from Mississippi that began in 1994. Their first album, The Better Life, came out in 2000. The band’s second studio album, Away from the Sun, was released in 2002. I think this is one of the better rock albums that has come out in the past six years. If you get only one of their albums, this would be my recommendation. This album had multiple hits including Here Without You (my personal favorite), When I’m Gone, The Road I’m On and Away from the Sun. They will have a new album coming out on May 20th and a couple of the songs are already out there for listening/viewing. The music video for one of these upcoming tracks, Citizen/Soldier, is featured on the National Guard Recruiting Site here. This is an excellent song, too.

To watch the music video for the song, Here Without You, click here.

For more information on the group, 3 Doors Down, click here.

Here Without You – Lyrics

A hundred days have made me older
Since the last time that I saw your pretty face
A thousand lies have made me colder
And I don’t think I can look at this the same
But all the miles that separate
Disappear now when I’m dreaming of your face

I’m here without you baby
But you’re still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby
And I dream about you all the time
I’m here without you baby
But you’re still with me in my dreams
And tonight it’s only you and me

The miles just keep rollin’
As the people leave their way to say hello
I’ve heard this life is overrated
But I hope that it gets better as we go

I’m here without you baby
But you’re still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby
And I dream about you all the time
I’m here without you baby
But you’re still with me in my dreams
And tonight girl it’s only you and me

Everything I know, and anywhere I go
It gets hard but it wont’ take away my love
And when the last one falls
When it’s all said and done
It gets hard but it won’t take away my love

I’m here without you baby
But you’re still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby
And I dream about you all the time
I’m here without you baby
But you’re still with me in my dreams
And tonight girl it’s only you and me

First off, I’m not a big Radiohead fan. Their music is okay, but I wouldn’t want to listen to them all day. That being said, there is one song of theirs that stands out and is worth listening to. The song is Street Spirit (Fade Out) from their 1995 album, The Bends. The song has a haunting and beautiful melody but the lyrics are rather depressing. If you’re in a real happy frame-of-mind, this song won’t help your situation any. The emotional impact of the song is about tenfold stronger if you watch the video. It really makes the song that much more powerful. It’s shot in black and white and uses multiple frame rates and slow motion photography to achieve the outstanding visual effects. I’ve also presented the lyrics below, if you’re interested. It’s most definitely worth a watch.

Click here for the video.

For more information on Radiohead, click here.

Street Spirit Lyrics

Rows of houses, all bearing down on me
I can feel their blue hands touching me
All these things into position
All these things we’ll one day swallow whole
And fade out again and fade out

This machine will, will not communicate
These thoughts and the strain I am under
Be a world child, form a circle
Before we all go under
And fade out again and fade out again

Cracked eggs, dead birds
Scream as they fight for life
I can feel death, can see its beady eyes
All these things into position
All these things we’ll one day swallow whole
And fade out again and fade out again

Immerse your soul in love
IMMERSE YOUR SOUL IN LOVE

Last night I was watching the movie, The Constant Gardener, for the second time. Normally, I just turn a DVD off when the video ends, but this time I let the credits start rolling. When I did, a most amazing song started playing. The song title is Kothbiro by a gentleman named Ayub Ogada.

Ayub Ogada is a Kenyan musician. In addition to his singing, he also plays an African stringed instrument called the nyatiti. Although this song came out on The Constant Gardener soundtrack in 2005, the song was actually recorded on his album, En Mana Kuoyo, which he recorded back in 1993. He’s also collaborated on several other songs with Susheela Raman and the Afro Celt Sound System.

Maybe I’ve been watching too many “Chick” flicks with my wife and daughter lately, but I really like the melody and lyrics of this song. You wouldn’t guess it from the melody, but the song is about cattle herding. The word Kothbiro translates roughly into English as “Rain is Coming”. Although sung in his natural tongue, the English translation is below:

Auma do you hear what I say
The rain is on its way
Return our cattle home
Yaye the children
What is it that you think you do?
The rain is on its way
Return our cattle home.

If you’d like to listen to the song, there’s a video on YouTube made by an individual from Argentina that used this song as the soundtrack. Click here.

If you’d like more information on Ayub Ogada, click here.

Definitely worth a listen.