All For Love — Bryan Adams, Sting, and Rod Stewart

I almost used one of my skips on this song, to hold it for a guilty pleasures collection, but I decided to go ahead and cover it. This is a 1993 power ballad written by Bryan Adams, Mutt Lange, and Michael Lange, for the movie The Three Musketeers. (Source: Infogalactic)

The first time around, this was a likable if not remarkable love song. Like most love songs, it's not incredibly deep, but it touches a romantic chord. I managed to pick it back up on a Rod Stewart greatest hits album I didn't realize was a greatest hits album, so into the rotation it weht.

(It's technically Bryan Adams' song, but I'm going to give you the link to the Rod Stewart collection I bought it in. If you have the other songs, just buy the one MP3.) Amazon Associates Links for Songs: CD MP3

Ghost of Our Fathers — Otis Gibbs

This song is one of my free music specials, from Amazon in 2014. It's a powerful song about a neighbor friend of the narrator's father, and how the two of them had a relationship with him. Mr. Gibbs is another of the singers that I'm going to make a priority to listen more to in 2020 and 2021.

When I was very young, we had a farmhand that everyone called "Chief". At the time I didn't understand it, but he helped keep the farm running while my grandfather was ill and in the hospital. I do remember staying nights with him, and he was very kind to me. When he moved out a few years later, I ceased to see him much, and basically grew disconnected from him. I hate that I wasn't able to be closer to him when he was older and back on the farm and then in the nursing home, but the relationship just wasn't there for me like it had been then. It's hard enough to pick a relationship up 30 years later if you were an adult 30 years ago; when you're a kid there's sometimes nothing left.

This song brings Chief to mind when I listen to it. For a few minutes, I can still try to recapture that relationship that seemed to be just out of the reach of 35 year old me.

Amazon Associates Links for Songs: CD MP3

Chicken Fried — Zac Brown Band

Chicken Fried is what I'd consider a new classic Country song. I am not a "country" boy by most standards, and I'm definitelyy not a beer drinker, but there's something comforting about the basic image of good clothing, a good family, and good food. It doesn't help that I like good fried chicken....

Amazon Associates Links for Songs: CD MP3

Hear You Scream -- Hania and EternalXIII

Today we change things up a bit. We're going obscure, and we're going deeper into the recesses of my psyche. We are going to visit Newgrounds.
In 2010, Hania Lee was helping her then-husband finish a Flash Game/Movie called Alice Is Dead (you'll hear that one again later). I started following her then, and have kept doing so through 2 name changes and multiple ups and downs.
In 2011 Hania released the song "Hear You Scream" for the Tarboy 2 project that never happened. I liked the original OK, but it was a bit too slow for my tastes. Then a Dubstep remixer named EternalXIII got ahold of it, and he made this:

(Sorry, NewGrounds is smart enough to stop direct linking to their music, but did so in a way I couldn't tell until the music was posted. You're going to have to go to https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/434701 to listen to the song...)

It's creepy, more than a bit strange, and it's fascinated me for almost a decade. I still listen to it. I wasn't able to find a YouTube version of the remix, and he never put a version up for sale that I can find. You can read more at NewGrounds, or download the song here.
If you want to check out Hania's original song, here's a YouTube lyrical video:

The song can be bought on the album "The Hero" (digital only) on Amazon.

If I Stand -- Rich Mullins

There are people who influence an entire genre of music. In a lot of ways, Rich Mullins helped define the Contemporary Christian Music genre of the 1990s, and in other ways it's never recovered from his loss or figured out what to do next.

Today's song is one of my go-tos when I need encourgement: If I Stand. "If I can't, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to you", and the classic line, "Let me weep as a man who is longing for his home." I usually cry when I listen, but it's a good cry.

Amazon Associates Links for Songs: CD MP3

Big Time -- Peter Gabriel

I'm a little young for Peter Gabriel as part of Genesis, although I have gone back and started listening to them more with him. I remeber this song from the radio the first time around, and the occasional view on MTV or TBS' Night Tracks.

As one meme says:
Director: How many different animation technologies do you want in this video, Peter?
PG: Yes.

Even so, the song has an incredibly cutting commentary. It's about a young man who is going to outgrow his hometown and be a big man in the big city. While generally serious, it still takes the opportunity to make fun of the protagonist ("a snow white pillow for my big fat head").

It's not as good as Mercy Street, Solsbury Hill, or especially Don't Give Up, but it's still an awfully good song, and it's an experience to watch.

Amazon Associates Links for Hit: CD MP3

Something To Talk About — Bonnie Raitt

When I was dating Paula, I told her that Bonnie Raitt was the second sexiest woman in the world. That hasn’t changed all that much. She’s still an incredible singer and guitar player, and Something to Talk About is one of her best. Luck of the Draw was the best of the three albums in her march to superstardom (even if Nick of Time and Longing in Their Hearts got the Grammys), and this was an awfully good song. It covers a playful flirtation that’s moving to more, innocent but adult. And there’s just something about a slide guitar....

Amazon Associates Links: CD MP3