In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: ‘When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence? — Gabrielle Roth
The title of this post is cribbed from Matthew McConoughey. A longer title would be: lyrics that shape how I see life.
Lyrics are special for me. Yes, my view of the world has been shaped by all the usual suspects: religion, philosophy, film, books, podcasts, and of course, life experience. But there’s something special about lyrics — poetry set to music — that really resonates with my depths. Lyrics are mantras I can sing along with. They ring a bell in my soul.
Lately, I’ve been compiling a “philosophical playlist” — consciously selecting songs that encapsulate ways that I want to view the world. For your listening pleasure, here it is: Dan’s philosophical playlist.
I’ve also created these “liner notes” — my favorite lyrics along with brief musings, roughly by theme (song titles are bolded).
This page and the playlist will be, I think, a life-long work in progress. I hope you enjoy listening, dancing, and singing along!
UNITY
Us and them – I used the line “and after all, we’re only ordinary men” in my high school graduation speech.
War – “Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned…everywhere is war” so succinct
Same shit / Complicated — “We’re all so complicated, I’m also complicated”
Wooden soldiers — judgement cheats the judge: “We shop at the same store and hate each other at the core, and neither one is getting a fair deal.” Also themes of anti-consumerism: “don’t need any just buy one the second one will be a steal / hashtagging photobragging no one who’s even sort of real / no wonder no one feels better than before”
One for you, one for me, Eyes of the world — we are all pinholes in the lantern of universal consciousness. More here.
MEANING
I like Giants — “We all become important when we realize our goal is to figure out our role within the context of the whole.” A sweet combo of awareness of smallness in space and time, juxtaposed with honesty about the inner critic (“all girls feel too big sometimes, regardless of their size”). Echoes Eyes of the world (“‘aint got time to call my soul a critic, no”).
My girlfriend doesn’t worry — Jeffrey is thinking about big things outside of his control: historical horrors, politics, cosmic meaninglessness. His girlfriend reminds him to go back to his zone of control. Ultimately, we create meaning through the Ripple we leave in the world. “Let there be songs to fill the air.”
Alphabet — “We’re parts of an alphabet, make new words with new folks we met.” “I hope that the art school enjoys your drawings of ruins. We’ve all got good things to do and it’s good when we do them.” “And the big round blue boat drifts around in the dark.” Echos Box of Rain: “It’s just a box of rain, I don’t know who put it there.”
Glass, concrete and stone — “skin, that covers me from head to toe, except for a couple tiny holes and openings, where, the city is blowing in and out This is what it’s all about, delightfully, everything’s possible when you’re an animal not inconceivable how things can change, I know, so im putting on aftershave, nothing is out of place try to pretend It’s not only glass and concrete and stone… Let my body and soul be my guide” I think this song is about creatively choosing your perspective
HOPE
My cosmic autumn rebellion – this song was my buoy during a dark period when I got fired and suffered collapse of my identity. “this one bird didn’t leave you, it stayed through the wintertime”
The sun hasn’t left – “the sun hasn’t left, the sea still has depth…”
DEATH
Do you realize? – A memento mori song if there ever was one: “Let them know you realize, that life goes fast, it’s hard to make the good things last, you realize the sun doesn’t go down, it’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round.”
Box of rain – “Such a long long time to be gone, and a short time to be here.” Written by Phil Lesh to sing to his dying father. And Phil has recently died too…
Bugs & Flowers — A silly take on composting: we are ultimately food for voracious flowers. I love the lyric “I’ve been a walker, A sidewalk talker” — I see a zoom out and realize that we do lots of things in life, and in the end, we are flower food. But hey, flowers are beautiful. We could do worse!
Map of the world – “There’s a map of the world on the wall in your room, green pins where you want to go, white pins where you’ve been and there isn’t even ten and you’re already feeling old.” When I first heard these lyrics, my heart resonated with an unfulfilled longing to explore. It took many years to fill that longing.
Hell in a bucket — Epicurianism, enjoying life without (too much) fear of death: “I might be going to hell in a bucket, but at least I’m enjoying the ride.”
Ocean Breathes Salty — The importance of mindfulness in appreciating life, because as far as we know, this is all we’ve got. “And maybe we’ll get lucky and we’ll both live again. Well, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, don’t think so…” “For your sake I hope heaven and hell are really there but I wouldn’t hold my breath…”
One chance — “We have one chance, to get everything right…My friends, my habits, my family, They mean so much to me.”
Silence shout — captures the fear of death
TIME
Krongu green slime — a grand tour through deep time, with themes of impermanence: “Forget you, forget me, it’s just cheap stuff that breaks”
Time trades – Freshman year of college, my dad and I went for a hike and I told him about wanting to be a doctor and he said pretty much what is in this song: “time is gonna take so much away, but there’s a way that you can offer time a trade”
The wheel — Change, constant change, that’s life in time. “You can’t go back and you can’t stand still. If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will”
Badfish — “Ain’t got no quarrels with God.” A succinct mantra for acceptance. For a long time, I did have a quarrel with God: I wanted to discover the cure for aging and be immortal. I got deeply into studying the biology of aging and realized that humans just haven’t evolved immortality, and while immortality is theoretically possible, technically I thought it wouldn’t happen for me, in my lifetime. I didn’t want to organize my life around a quarrel with God. Over time, I accepted death as a fact of life and put down my quarrel (though I still think it’s sad that I guess we’re not supposed to be wise). Another quarrel I sometimes have is with the past. I look back and regret that I made a certain choice (e.g. a breakup), or that something painful happened (e.g. illness of a loved one). But if I look at the past through the lens of karma, I see that everything that happened was because of certain causes and conditions. It couldn’t have gone any other way. For me, God = the laws of the physics, chemistry, biology, psychology. In a nutshell, karma.
CREATIVITY
Creators – “We’re not consumers, we are creators, breath takers, energy makers”
Terrapin Station — A potent artist’s prayer: “Inspiration move me brightly, fill my song with sense and color.”
Rock classics — “I’m making a new song”
ALIGNMENT
Don’t let the record label take you out to lunch — “Everyone has been fair and nice and you consider them a friend / But everything still has a price and you don’t want to overspend / Because it’s your wallet and your soul when the check comes in the end / No matter what the situation, art, love, or occupation / I’ll hold off on the hors d’oeuvres, that’s not what I’m in it for / I only want what I deserve, I want no less, I want no more”
The sound of failure — “She’s decided to live her life, from the inside out”
Falling man — Failure’s painful: “I know, a ghost, can walk through a wall, but I am just a man still learning how to fall”
Big A, Little A — “If the program’s not the one you want, get up, turn off the set.” “Systems aren’t made of bricks, they’re mostly made of people.”
Cocaine and Abel — “The distance from the man I am to the man I want to be.”
GRIEF
Touch of Grey — “The ABCs we all must face, try to have a little grace, and give a little love” maps to buddhism: old, sick, dead
Crazy fingers — Maps to the parable of the Chinese farmer. “Life may be sweeter for this, IDK, see how it feels in the end”
If life exists — a succinct description of the hedonic treadmill, our tendency to always want more, the chair in the sky problem (taking wonders for granted), and our ability, at every moment, to choose our lens “Every minute of every day we have the choice: to wish things could be better or be glad they aren’t worse.”
Mother I’ve taken LSD – “now I see the sadness in the world, and I’m sorry I didn’t see it before” sadness makes life more full, repressing it makes you less alive
Shine on you crazy diamond — a deep eulogy, grief, and celebration of a life
Random rules — “I asked the painter why the roads were color black, he said Steve it’s because people leave and there’s no highway to bring them back” also relates to alignment: “nobody should have two lives”
STAGES OF LIFE
Sugar Mountain — “You can’t be 20 on Sugar Mountain, with the barkers and the colored balloons.” There’s a point when you have to step away from the land of pure childhood, and accept responsibility.
The diamond sea — “how does your mirror grow?” a great question to ask oneself, which to me means: Who am I becoming? Look into his eyes and you will see, why all the little kids are dressed in dreams — kids can dream with no fetters; adults have to make their dreams conform to reality.
Lace your shoes — “Someone’s gonna be cruel” – it’s not possible to protect your kids from pain. “I’m working to do better, so that you get to do the same.”
F your acid trip — a silly song that juxtaposes childlike wonder with adult responsibilities
Cassidy — “Nothing to tell now, let the words be yours I’m done with mine.” The importance of letting people go to make up their own minds. I think it’s about parenting.
Gravity rides everything — “as fruit drops, flesh it sags”
Wake up — “I guess we’ll just have to adjust”
Both sides now — everything in life can be seen from two perspectives: innocence and experience
LOVE AND GRATITUDE
House where nobody lives — “If there’s love in a house, it’s a palace for sure.” Goes for both a house and person.
Wharf Rat — the importance of empathy, really seeing someone with compassion
Do what comes natural — “If you act like an artist / Then it makes you an artist / If you act like a sleazeball / Then it makes you a sleaze / If you act like an athlete / Then it makes you an athlete / But it’s always a challenge / And it’s never a breeze / And if you act like you love me / Then I guess that you love me…So I could say it was true / The things I made myself do / Because the things that I did / Became the life that I had.”
Mama — “I’ve got no regrets, only unpaid debts, for all the kindness from people like you.” My mom and I were planning to dance to this song together during my wedding, but the wedding had other plans 🙂
100 Good things — “My perspective needs a radical twist, there’s so many reasons I should exist, there’s so many things on my list.” An antidote to Depression/Despair
We’re lucky — “These are the stars and these are the seas / Well, these are the places that we’re lucky just to be between” “It takes a lifetime to ever figure out that there / there ‘aint no lifetime that’s ever figured out”
So much beauty in dirt — “Get real drunk and ride our bikes, there’s so much beauty it could make you cry”
We are real — “My ski vest has buttons like convenience store mirrors and they help me see, that everything in this room right now is a part of me” interbeing!
Two shoes — “One day one woman asked him what do you do to survive, he said dear listen here and this is what he cried: on my feet I wear two shoes for dancing dancing to be free, my feet they’re paying tribute to the Bobby Marley legacy…”
Coconut flakes — “And I know you want to run, but just try to stay in one place and have a little fun”
Like humans do — “for millions of years in millions of homes a man loved a woman a child then was born” “wiggle while you work, anybody can” This song was probably the first English rock song I remember hearing because it was the only song loaded onto our Windows 95 computer!
danscreativeoulet 