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Song Lyric Sunday was created by Helen Vahdati from This Thing Called Life One Word at a Time and author Jim Adams from A Unique Title For Me is our current guest host. For complete rules or to join in the fun, click here.

This week’s theme is  “North/South/East/West.”

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Seven League Boots was a song written by Rick and Michael Curtis and suggested to Crosby, Stills & Nash. Stephen Stills explained, “The Curtis Brothers brought a wonderful song called Seven League Boots, but it drifted around too much. I rewrote a new set of words and added a different chorus, a story about a long boat trip I took after my divorce. It’s about using the power of the universe to heal your wounds. Once again, I was given somebody’s gem and cut and polished it.”

Southern Cross was the result of Stills’ re-write. The song title and lyrics reference the Crux constellation, known as the Southern Cross.

FUN FACTS

• The single was a success on the charts, reaching #18 on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in late November and early December 1982.
• The song mentions a number of locations that one may visit on a sailing voyage from Southern California to the South Pacific, following the “Coconut Milk Run.”
• Southern Cross was featured on the band’s Daylight Again album and was released as a single in September 1982.
• Stephen Stills sings lead vocals throughout Southern Cross, with Graham Nash joining the second verse. Because David Crosby did not reunite with Stills and Nash until the album was well underway, his vocals are not featured on the album version of the song, although he did appear in the video and subsequently sang the song with the group in live performances.

The video for the song, which got heavy play during the early years of the MTV and VH1 cable networks, featured Stephen Stills sailing a large boat (called Southern Cross), intercut with images of the band singing

Enjoy!

See my Song Lyric Sunday selection for FeliciaDenise.com.

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Disclaimer: I have no copyrights to the song and/or video and/or hyperlinks to songs and/or videos and/or gifs above. No copyright infringement intended.

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Song Lyric Sunday was created by Helen Vahdati from This Thing Called Life One Word at a Time and author Jim Adams from A Unique Title For Me is our current guest host. For complete rules or to join in the fun, click here.

This week’s theme is  “Listen/Hear/Talk/Speak.”

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As one of our five senses, hearing is something most of us are born with–not something we must learn. Those born without the ability to hear, or who lose their hearing through accident or illness, must learn to interact with the world in other ways to hear and be heard. They put in time, expense… and effort.

And that’s perhaps where the hearing impaired have the edge.

Most of us, time and again, take hearing for granted. We all have something to say, but all too often, we don’t hear what is being said. We can also be guilty of hearing what we want to hear and totally miss the meaning of what is being said, especially if we already have our minds made up on certain subjects.

I watched both my late mother and mother-in-law suffer extensive hearing loss. My mother-in-law spent thousands of dollars on hearing aids because she didn’t want to miss what was being said. My mom developed a talent for reading lips and insisted you look directly at her when speaking. Even if you weren’t speaking to her… she wanted to get the entire conversation! 😀 😀

If those of us who aren’t hearing-impaired put in half the effort to hear as those who are, perhaps we could avoid disagreements and misunderstandings. If we listened in earnest without trying to complete what is being said with our own words, we’d not only better understand what is being said, but the person speaking.

I chose You are Loved (Don’t Give Up) by Josh Groban for SLS for its simple message of universal understanding. Everyone wants to be heard… everyone wants to be understood. We don’t have to agree with everything we hear, but don’t we need to listen in honesty to understand what is being said?

To quote a line from another song–The Living Years by Mike and the Mechanics–You can listen as well as you hear.

FUN FACTS

• You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up) peaked at #9 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart.
• You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up) is the second track and the first single from Josh Groban’s third album, Awake, released on November 7, 2006. The album features producers Imogen Heap, Marius De Vries, Guy Sigsworth, Eric Mouquet, Glen Ballard, and David Foster (who also worked on previous Groban works).
• Awake was certified 2x platinum in the US by the RIAA on January 31, 2008, and has sold 2.3 million albums as of October 2015. It is the third top selling classical album of the 2000s in the US.

Enjoy!

See my Song Lyric Sunday selection for FeliciaDenise.com.

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Disclaimer: I have no copyrights to the song and/or video and/or hyperlinks to songs and/or videos and/or gifs above. No copyright infringement intended.

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Song Lyric Sunday was created by Helen Vahdati from This Thing Called Life One Word at a Time and author Jim Adams from A Unique Title For Me is our current guest host. For complete rules or to join in the fun, click here.

This week’s theme is  “Ankles/Hands/Feet/Fingers/Toes/Wrists.”

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Returning again to the days of old VH1 and VJs and music videos around-the-clock, and you guessed it, another song that remains on my oldies playlist!

Hands to Heaven was released by British group Breathe as their fifth UK single on 20 October 1987, and in January 1988 as the band’s second single in the US.

The song was a breakthrough hit internationally for Breathe. The ballad peaked at No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart in August 1988. That same month in the United States, it logged two weeks at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song also reached No. 2 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.

The mister and I loved this song, not to mention the easy rhythm put our then three-year-old David right to sleep, but the video always felt off.

The official video is nice, but the lyrics make me feel as though the guy in the song should be military, headed for deployment, or perhaps relocating for a job, or even headed off to school… not falling asleep in the back of a taxi. Who thought this up? :D 😀 😀

FUN FACTS

• The song was written by group members David Glasper and Marcus Lillington but they shared credit with the entire group.
• According to Wikipedia, the music video features the group in a surreal dream sequence, with the lead singer falling asleep in a black London taxicab and waking at the end, being driven away by the driver. (And 32 years later I still don’t get it! 😀 )
• Lead singer Glasper is now a 55-year-old grandfather! Feel old yet? 😀

Enjoy!

See my Song Lyric Sunday selection for FeliciaDenise.com.

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Disclaimer: I have no copyrights to the song and/or video and/or hyperlinks to songs and/or videos and/or gifs above. No copyright infringement intended.

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