music to my soul

{This is the song that made me fall in love with Carbon Leaf}

My relationship with music can be pretty random.

There are some days where I'll listen to the same song 10 times in a row, and other days where my mix will be nothing short of Ella Fitzgerald, the Les Miserables soundtrack and Hanson.

I've never been someone who defines themselves by the music they listen to. I don't know everything about classic rock, or have 40 hours of orchestral music on my iPod, and I don't only listen to bands that no one has heard of.

But I love the Joshua Tree album, anything by Frank Sinatra, the Chopin nocturnes (thank you, parents), and a few bands that no one I know seems to be familiar with.

Carbon Leaf, Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, and Jon McLaughlin are the musical men that I've had pretty long term relationships with, stereo speaking. I don't listen to them every day, but I've never played one of their songs and not fallen in love with them all over again.

I saw Carbon Leaf in concert last summer at one of my favorite little concert venues, literally an old garage turned hipster scene. It was incredible. I don't know what it is about their music, but it hits me right in the soul. It's like coming home.

SK and the Sixers has some kind of drawl, but they aren't really country, and their music doesn't make me want to dance, but it makes me love my life a little bit more.

In 2008, when I saw Sara Bareilles in concert, I found out later that she'd been touring with Jon, but not when I saw her. Jon McLaughlin's music is like a breath of much needed fresh air. It's like a weekend in the country, when you've been stuck at the office all week, smothered in city smog and subway steel. (Not that I've actually had that experience, but I'm pretty sure if I had, Jon's music is the sort of thing that would keep me sane.)

They are like old friends that, even when we haven't talked in a few months or years, when we bump into each other and decide to grab lunch, after five minutes, it's like we're back in high school and we never lost touch.