**Six Stars**

[My apologies to anybody who got excited about a new blog post and sees that it's the same as my post on Facebook. Different pools of possible readers. The end is different, though!]

Six Stars

That's the title of a playlist in my iTunes, and I just listened through it all tonight. It's the handful of songs that, over time, have affected me every time I listen to them. They're the ones I hear and think, "Man, I wish I could give this more than 5 stars to mark down just how GOOD it is!"

Listening through these songs has been a transcendant experience. Starting with John Williams' "Hologram/Binary Sunset" and the french horn that makes me want to cry because I can never really be in the Star Wars world, I traveled through 20 songs, each of which left me silent with wonder. Some of which left my heart so tugged that I didn't know what to do but savor the bittersweetness.

As I sat there with my eyes closed, the comfortable couch and the warm room and house around me seemed oddly small. I thought of thanking Mom and Dad for providing this incredibly peaceful and pleasant building for me to live in here on this earth, compared to so much harshness and misery elsewhere. Occasionally the thought of God's infinity and my existence in heaven shot through me, and I finally made peace with my heart by figuring and accepting that in heaven all these heart pangs would be met, whether its the equivalent of standing on Tatooine watching the twin suns set, or just finding a "bottom" for the feelings stirred up by hearing songs from years ago, from times that will never be again.

I found indescribable peace, while listening through these songs, from knowing that I had created a song on that list. For whatever reason, I just can't stand hearing outstanding music and knowing that I can't make such stuff myself. Most of the time that's the case, and I'm left chafing, but tonight I knew that "What a Night" deserved to be on that list. And even as I marvelled at the perfect intricacies of David Altrogge's "Coming Home (1945: The GI's Song)" and wondered how much of Switchfoot's stunning beauty in "Might Have Ben Hur" was planned, I knew that a song like that had come from me.
I myself had written a song from the most inexplainable and deeply-rooted threads of my being, and it had come together in a recording that is better than I could ever have planned, and better than I could probably make again.

This is the unstable source of my peace, for it is not necessarily skill that gets you a "six star" song. We are subject to the cold winds of chance. A mistake on the first take, a deleted track, and transcendence can be lost. I feel good that the pieces came together for this song, and by the same token I chafe, because I cannot force more greatness to happen. It just has to come out when I least expect it.. when it's not on my mind.. . . when it doesn't come from me.

Such is the curse and the joy of a musician.


This all being said, do you have a "six star" song you'd like to share? I love telling other people about these songs that mean so much to me and having them appreciate them, so by the same token I'd love to hear what songs leave you "sitting back in wonder."

And if anyone is interested, here's What a Night.
In a way, it's the best thing I have to offer the world at the moment.

And here in my blog I'll write out what I decided to forgo in the Facebook note: The "introversion disclaimer." It states, basically, that I realize this has been an effectively Godless rumination--that these words make things seem grander or more important than they are from a higher perspective. It defends against correction readers might bring to the "cold winds of fate" statement, which is how it feels, not how it is with a sovereign God. Is says that I realize I was emotional as I wrote it.

I left it out because I get tired of qualifying every sensitive statement I make and feeling like I have to prove to anyone who might criticize me that I "see around my work." I left it out 'cause I get sick of the "curse of the analytical" sometimes--the neverending circumspection and self analysis that must bring everything down to cold, intentional purpose and correctness. But here in this journal, I'll leave the comfy couch of the bulk of this post and point myself, and anyone reading, to another of my songs here at the end. Once you've shared my joys and sorrows (if you actually did), finish up by listening to "You Ain't That Big of a Deal." It's the truth, like it or not :-|