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