Two Songs for Opposite Moods by Kaye Spencer #prairierosepubs #feelgoodsongs #sadsongs

We all know songs that lift us up, take us to cherished places in our memories, or remind us of the not-so-happy experiences and events in our lives. We can pinpoint a moment in time and practically relive the emotion we felt when we hear certain songs.

In my musical-memory world, I have an imaginary line on a song spectrum. This opposite ends of this line are capped by two specific and never-changing songs. On any given day, and according to my frame of mind and mood, other songs fall somewhere along that invisible, fluid song line and between the end-cap songs.

On the feel-good, makes-my-toes-tap-and-my-heart-happy part of the song spectrum are songs like these—

• Great White Horse
• My Rifle, My Pony, and Me
• Beat It
• Dream On
• Don’t Worry, Be Happy
• (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life
• Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
• Oh, Pretty Woman
• I’m Still Standing
• Bus Stop
• Holding Out for a Hero
• Take My Breath Away
• Home in the Meadow
• Goodbye Earl
• There’s a Kind of Hush

These are song examples that live on the other end where ‘Yes, in fact, I did eat the entire five-pound box of Russell Stover assorted chocolates while binge-listening on YouTube and using up a box of tissues’—

• One Promise too Late
• Fernando
• My Woman, My Woman, My Wife
• Alone
• It Must Have Been Love
• White Christmas
• My Heart Will Go On
• Give My Love to Rose
• Careless Whisper
• How Do I Live?
• It’s Only Make Believe
• The Dance
• Yesterday
• Yesterday, when I was Young
• For the Good Times

The two songs that keep the rest of the songs from slipping off the ends of my make believe song line are from different musical genres, but both songs reach me at deeply emotional places.

One song elicits memories of a particularly happy time in my life—like that one perfect summer—and the other song delivers me to a bittersweet, love-that-was-doomed-from-the-start and didn't end happily time in my life.

I’ll start with the melancholy song.

Who Wants to Live Forever?

 

This song is a 1986 power ballad by the rock group Queen. It was written by the group’s lead guitarist Brian May for the soundtrack to the movie Highlander. Legend has it that it took him only 20 minutes to write the song (in the back seat of a car) after he watched the 20-minute initial cut of the scene in the Highlander movie where immortal Connor MacLeod’s non-immortal wife dies.

For me, there isn’t a sadder, more hopeless, existential-crisis song.

Highlander movie clip with the song. If the clip doesn't show on your device, here is the url:

https://youtu.be/TqFoiM0zxdY

 

Here’s my toe-tapping, face-smiling, earworm-worthy happy song. 

Dance Little Jean by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

This song was released as a single in October 1983, and it reached Number 9 on Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. According to Wikipedia,  Longtime member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Jimmy Ibbotson...

...wrote the song hoping the charm and romance of the story would convince his ex-wife that they should get back together. Little Jean was named for his real life daughter who would always dance when he played guitar. When he played it for his ex-wife for the first time, Little Jean danced, but his ex-wife's response was not what he had hoped for. She told him he would be able to afford child support now, because that song would be a hit.

Alrighty then…

Despite that story, it’s still a feel-good song that appeals to the romantic in me. It makes makes me warm and fuzzy and glad all over when I hear it.

If the video doesn't show on your device, here is the url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSl-gi98AV4

Do you have opposite-mood songs or a song that picks you up or brings on the melancholy memories?  I’d love to hear what they are.

Until next time,
Kaye Spencer

Writing through history one romance upon a time

Stay in contact with Kaye—

Facebook
Instagram
Blogging
Twitter