music of the spheres

i’ve been thinking i might start a blog about someone who creates a blog and then never blogs on it because they have a horrific case of writers block. oh wait…that’s me. in spite of the excitement when i first began putting this together (i even had some ready-made topics, just dying to be written about) i seem to be stalling horribly. laziness, procrastination and laziness. all this angst about being ‘blog-blocked’ (i just made that up, i’m pretty sure) has started me thinking not only about why i am, but also about something that i call ‘music of the spheres’ (i kind of made that up, too, or at least made up my own definition for it). music of the spheres is created from something totally opposite of writers block – those songs that sound so unbelievably right, so beautiful (or not beautiful), so perfect that they seem to exist without any effort at all. as though the writers simply opened up some celestial channel and the song poured through them. sometimes i call these ‘key to the universe’ songs, which i guess makes a little more sense. either way, when i listen to them i can’t imagine a writer sitting down and laboring over their creation – they seem effortless and mystical and powerful in a way other songs do not. its hard for me to describe why these songs capture my imagination in this way. i only know that when i listen to them i feel totally transported and totally dumbfounded that a human being sat down and wrote it – they feel like they arrived from somewhere else. a small sample of my list, off the top of my head:

thats the way of the world – earth, wind and fire

jackie wilson said - van morrison (there are plenty of his songs that fall into this category, like ‘into the mystic’)

too early for the sun – kenny loggins (i know, i know….)

why – yoko one (an example of ‘not beautiful’, and totally from some other place)

you bring me joy – david lasley (he wrote it, anita baker made it famous)

oh me, oh my, i’m a fool for you baby (aretha)

how can i be sure? (the rascals)

whats goin’ on – marvin gaye (another one who has a lot of songs in this category)

stoned soul picnic – laura nyro (in a language all her own) 

strangely enough, while these are some of my favorite songs, not all of my favorite songs make the list. and while none of the songs on this abbreviated list are current, they were the first to pop into my head because they have endured as classics, and their power and mystery has captivated me for ages. imagining any of these artists ‘deciding’ to write one of these songs seems impossible to me – how can you plan something so magnificent, so soulful, so joyful? now if i could only grab hold, for a fleeting moment, to this kind of inspiration – i could write a blog entry about it.