Mid-afternoon music montage

Two days now, we have had dance parties in the grannies' living room. We truly rock out and JB has been smiling and enjoying all the moves. We've been trying to teach him to dance with his hands and "raise the roof".
He looks at me like I'm crazy.

Today, we were driving with Kt's dad, and this random mix of music came on the radio.
Some oldies, some not so oldies, but we were singing to JB. It was like music appreciation on wheels. There were about 8 songs in a row that made Katy and me go,
"YEAH! THIS IS A GOOD ONE TOO, JB!!!"

Again, though he was trapped, all strapped in his car seat, we were encouraging him to groove and move and dance with his hands. He smiled intermittently, eying us the way a nervous visitor might glance around a locked ward.

I don't remember them all but some of the songs were:
Walking in Memphis - Marc Cohn
This will be (an everlasting love) - Natalie Cole
I wanna be rich - Calloway
Chasing cars - Snow Patrol
Say (what you need to say) - John Mayer

There's a story that goes along with each of those songs. Stories that maybe one day I'll tell our son... here's one:

When I was pregnant, John Mayer was singing that "Say" on the radio an awful lot:

I'll be honest with you, I'm not even sure wtf that song is supposed to mean. I look at the lyrics (below) and I want to shout,

"JOHN MAYER, STOP TRYING TO BANG SO MANY GIRLS AND BUY A THESAURUS!!! 20 unique lines of barely rhyming prose??? REALLY? SERIOUSLY? DID YOU WRITE IT IN BETWEEN DATES on a Friday night?!?"

There's the chance that song has no intended meaning, was written for no purpose save to score a few presidents or bag a few babes. But, the song unlocks something in me. There's a part of me that fights becoming completely undone and feels flashes of my most vulnerable self emerge when the dang thing is playing. I think that song was playing in the background when important things were happening during my pregnancy. I think that song conjured up events that happened immediately before and more than a decade before. Things that were very wonderful and things that were very sad. Sweet, insignificant moments, and poignant, life altering moments.

Is it me, or is it hard to hear that song and not be the star of your own personal music video playing on a loop in your head?

Take all of your wasted honor
Every little past frustration
Take all your so called problems
Better put 'em in quotations

Say what you need to say (x7)
Say what you need to saaaay...

Walking like a one man army
Fighting with the shadows in your head
Living out the same old moment
Knowing you'd be better off instead

If you could only
Say what you need to say (x7)
Say what you need to saaay...

Have no fear
For giving in
Have no fear
For giving over
You better know that in the end
It's better to say too much
Then never to say what you need to say again

Even if your hands are shaking
And your faith is broken
Even as the eyes are closing
Do it with a heart wide open... wide...

Say what you need to say (x7)
Say what you need to (x2)
Say what you need to say...

So, I think you get what I mean about the thesaurus, right?

After looking at this, I feel (sincerely) like you can't trust a word out of John Mayer's slick, playboy, CT-grown mouth. But if you could trust him, it does seem like he wrote the song of the same nature and emotional context that I just described above.
Life is too short.
Just say
what
you
need
to
say...

If you're hurting, if you're striving, if you're dying... If you are thrilled, exuberant, evolving, or lost in love... If you have a secret that is eating you alive. If you are thinking about leaving, changing, doing something that might "disappoint" someone... If you are aching with fear or love or life... or just living- trying not to fall into death via the suffocation of suburban or corporate compromise...
speak.
your.
mind.

Today, dancing and singing with our little boy, I realized this is part of the gig.
Every night I put him to bed and thank him for the way he is and the way he has allowed me to see the world. And one of the most important things I will strive to teach him is to find ways to express himself:
Speak your heart, even if it pounds in your chest or your hands tremble or your voice quivers.

Dance with your feet and hands and eyes because if you really listen to lovely things in life (like people and music) it usually means allowing your body to move with them and toward them and respond physically.

Listen to music - wherever you find it - to the harmonies, melodies, percussion, lyrics, and the silent parts behind the music that inexplicably turn a key and release something in you that you didn't even know was locked up.

SWYNTS: I think this is the secret to happiness and the trick to life if you want to be smiling when you're reviewing your own personal, imaginary music video at the end of it all...

just sayin'...

Now I'm goin' to bed... hope you enjoyed the music :)