Thinking about music

As often happens, that music meme has made me want to reflect on why certain people or albums are so important in the story of my life. I started commenting on gillo's comment on my last post, and it became a long paragraph, so I thought I'd post it here instead. I'm not sure where my passion for Springsteen comes from. Partly a "soundtrack" issue - you know how you seem to have a soundtrack for certain parts of your life? Well, "The River" was my soundtrack when I was in grad school, and "Born in the USA" was when I was teaching in China. And the music has just stuck. Also, he's on the side of the angels as far as his politics and what he expresses in his lyrics - morph to pickledginger's meme on protest songs. If you don't know Stan Rogers - I don't know how well he's known outside Canada - try him, you'll can't fail to like him, I think. "Northwest Passage" is the quintessential anthem to Canada - CBC radio listeners voted it the ultimate Canadian song in a poll once, and it was the song I played to my Chinese students, saying "listen to this, and read the words, and you'll understand what it is to be Canadian." But that makes him sound not accessible to others: listen to "The Mary Ellen Carter" and the refrain "Rise again... rise again...like the Mary Ellen Carter rise again" and you'll have something to help you to overcome bad patches in your life.