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