A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

I CANNOT THINK OF A CLEVER TITLE FOR THIS ONE: What songs inspire the good in you? Is it more the case that you happen to hear them and then are inspired or do you actually seek them out as inspiration?

I'm not really thinking specifically of "psych up" songs such as music you might play before an athletic event, although I am by no means meaning to exclude such songs. Instead, I'm thinking of songs that guide and encourage you in connection with your long-term approach to life.

The five songs that come to mind in this regard for me are (in no particular order):

• Harvest for the World by the Isley Brothers,
• The Fuse by Jackson Browne,
• Wake Up Everybody by Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes ,
  
• Badlands by Bruce Springsteen, and
• On Your Face by Earth Wind & Fire ("Sadness bears no remedy for the problems in your life").
  

Interesting that all five came out around the same time. Perhaps it was because they arrived at a time when I was trying in my ham-handed adolescent way to figure out a personal philosophy?

To answer the second question I posed above, I rarely seek them out specifically. Yesterday, for example, I played "Harvest for the World" when I learned that a friend of a friend had passed away. "Harvest for the World" is a favorite song of that friend.

But each time I hear these songs I feel inspired.