The Awakening

Melissa Etheridge's The Awakening is the best album I've heard this year. Though I'm so out of listening to new music, that I'm not sure what you're supposed to do with that perception.

Yesterday Pam called and said it was great and that I would love it. I was out running errands, so I bought it and listened to it some in the background while visiting Kara and her new baby Maya. Then I listened closely as I drove to Stillwater last night. Pam was right it was great. It was full of catchy songs that I found myself singing along to even on first listen.

It's also full of really powerful songs. This morning on the way home, I finished listening to the album and during the final song I sang out loudly and cried. Powerful.

California and Message to Myself are great songs to sing along to while driving. Threesome is hilarious. I look forward to dancing to it at the Finish Line. I was particularly struck by the reference to Fred Phelps as "a suffering soul on the way to the kingdom of heaven," in the song Kingdom of Heaven. Also this, "A suffering soul on the way to the kingdom of heaven/Prayed in the dark "Death to the infidel"/He strapped all his desperate pain and his faith to his body/Then blew them away." The final two lines of that opened me up to new understandings of the terrorists. Finally, What Happens Tomorrow should become a new protest anthem. It's the song that really moved me "If not now, when? If not today, then what happens tomorrow?" We can't till tomorrow. It really must be today.

Comments

[Meredith]

I just downloaded this album on iTunes and am really looking forward to listening to it. I've decided that Melissa Etheridge is going to be my soundtrack for this unit of CPE.

[Sarah]

Hey, Scott, did you get the e-mail i sent to you?