This week’s mixtape is focused on Emotional Depth. These 20 tracks are personal favorites that I’ve assembled to share a more intimate scope of my own tastes beyond the dancefloor. I have cried, reflected, sang along, and sat alone to these tracks, and their impact grows as time goes on. Some I have heard for years, though didn’t take an interest in until I really discovered their true beauty.
As music is interpreted by the listener, I’ve found myself relating to these emotions and have empathized with their words and sounds beyond their popularity or their assumed audience. For example, the first track is a song I’ve known for a long time, but only in the past few years did I hear it differently. It made so much sense to me once I took its message and applied it to myself as the narrative, although the singer in this case is a woman. That is the essence of my intention here. I hope to push these songs across our comfortable understandings and into the areas we may keep more guarded, more intimate. To have a song possess the listener’s deepest emotions transcends any self-identification and provides a glimpse of our souls that doesn’t care whether we are men or women, gay or straight, old or young, etc. And in seeking these lessons that are hidden in the areas of our minds that we guard and limit due to feelings of inhibition, we open ourselves up to true freedom and emotions that were never supposed to be hidden.
The mixtape contains:
Sheryl Crow- Strong Enough
John Hiatt- Have a Little Faith In Me
Benny Mardones- Into the Night
The Cars- Drive
Heart- Alone
Bruce Springsteen- I’m On Fire
Lionel Richie- Do It To Me
Bill Withers- Just the Two of Us
Sting- If I Ever Lose My Faith In You
Tina Turner- What’s Love Got to Do With It
Simply Red- Sunrise 2003
Phil Collins- Something Happened On the Way to Heaven
Fleetwood Mac- Everywhere
Talking Heads- This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)
Bonnie Raitt- I Can’t Make You Love Me
Aimee Mann- Wise Up
Mario Spinetti- When You Say My Name
Breathe- Sweet Caress
Eddie Money- Take Me Home Tonight
Magnet & Gemma Hayes- Lay Lady Lay
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About Joseph Rannazzisi
jojoSOUL is a DJ/drummer/music-maker/teacher from Long Island, NY, residing in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
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so, there’s a great story behind “strong enough.” the Tues Music Club was recording at Bill Bottrell’s studio in, I think, a remote part of Pasadena. The nearest spot for a drink was a gay bar. Co-writer David Baerwald went for a drink and overheard one guy say to another, “Are you strong enough to be my man?” And, a lyric was born.
I have gone through my share of difficult times, whereby I’ve felt compelled to apologize for my own lack in understanding how to make someone happy, and also how to refrain from hurting them. The song struck me deeply some years ago when I was asking myself how my wife is able to put up with me. The words sung built a familiar emotion for me to empathize with, and related to my own concerns in my relationship, deeming it very effective music and a great universal concept for all who have felt the same. Thanks for listening Nina, and thank you to the boys in the outskirts of Pasadena!
It’s just great, isn’t it, how a song can affect us personally and emotionally? And can be used to define a moment in time or process a difficult situation. And all that with melody and rhythm! As you well know, it’s all sort of in the studio when it’s happening, too. All compressed into that little room with the personalities and the glitches and the glories of sound…and then gets launched into the world. That’s what happens with all art.