The Soundtrack to My Life as a Motion Picture

By R. Lewis Lightner on June 29th, 2010.

So, in case you haven’t noticed…I kind of live my life as the exception. I’m not sure why I am the way I am…but I recently heard a very wise quote in the movie Not Easily Broken. “If you want to know the purpose of a thing, you can’t ask the thing to tell you. A car doesn’t know why its a car. Only the manufacturer knows what it was made to do.” That being said, I realized some years ago that my life, like any movie, was far more interesting with the appropriate soundtrack. This spilled over into nearly everything I did. Over the years, I have become obsessed with the right song for the right occasion…the right mood…the right frame of mind. Its to the point that I’m not quite sure if I’m even in control anymore…or if the random songs that I happen into seem to influence my life. This applies to nearly every activity. I love to cook to Jazz…more specifically Bop for some reason…or Sinatra. Nearly every activity or mode of my life has some sort of appropriate theme music. I remember in an interview with Dan Wilson, the lead singer of Semisonic, he was discussing their song “Singing in My Sleep.” The song was about the art of the modern mix tape…and how you can really get to know somebody…and possibly even fall in love with somebody based upon the songs they choose to expose you to. I specifically remember the lines, “I’ve been living in your cassette…Its the modern equivalent, of singing up to a Capulet on a balcony in your mind.” I totally feel where he was going with that. I think about summer rainy days…and how they inspire such a wonderful sense of melancholia. (I tend to imagine rolling around on a black sand beach with a hot model with incredibly beautiful eyes…as I hear Chris Isaak‘s “Wicked Game” in the background…or something from Joe Henry’s CD Scar…specifically the song “Stop”…which you may more recognize as the Madonna‘s  “Don’t Tell Me,” from her album Music. (The song was actually written by Joe Henry, who is married to Madonna’s sister Melanie. Henry’s more “Tango-esque” version of the song was also featured on an episode of “The Sopranos.”) There some other incredible songs on Scar that are incredible on rainy days…including “Mean Flower” as well as “Rough and Tumble,” or the dirge-like “Richard Pryor Addresses a Tearful Nation,” featuring legendary jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman. If you’ve never listened to Joe Henry on a rainy day…you really haven’t lived. Allmusic‘s Thom Jurek, in reference to Henry stated that he   “has moved into a space that only he and Tom Waits inhabit in that they are songwriters who have created deep archetypal characters that are composites—metaphorical, allegorical,   and ‘real’—of the world around them and have created new sonic universes for them to both explore and express themselves in. Scar is a triumph not only for Henry—who has set a new watermark for himself—but for American popular music, which so desperately needed something else to make it sing again.” Rainy Sunday evenings tend to put me into Billy Joel‘s “New York State of Mind,” especially driving to or from my home, looking at the city skyline from my South Hills neighborhood. The acoustic version of  “Rain King“ from Counting Crows seems to speak to me as well…especially when I find myself contemplating denial’s role in my life.

Speaking of “The Sopranos,” I don’t know that I can think of any TV series of recent years with a more wonderfully eclectic soundtrack…that is all to easy to live by somehow. I remember being surprised in an early episode hearing Morphine‘s “Buena” as the closing track. It kind of knocked me on my ass because I had been listening to the song for over ten years and it seemed that hardly anybody I ever talked to about it had ever heard of the song. As for other tracks, I had frequently driven to a house I didn’t yet own for nearly an entire year listening to the Theme from The Sopranos aka “Woke Up This Morning” from Alabama 3, because it just seemed to fit. Nearly every night I would close the club I owned, and drive to this hilltop home blaring the opening track. I had it timed just right too…at which stoplight leaving the club to hit play so that it was ending as I pulled in the driveway. It was perfect…somehow, someway…just perfect at that moment in my life anyway.

Thinking about music in film and the feeling it gives you, or how it transports you to a place in time…or a particular scene…or even a particular frame. Think of “Stuck in the Middle With You” from Stealer’s Wheel. What do you think of? Could it be Michael Madsen as the infamous Vick Vega, aka Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs...dancing in his crisp white shirt to K-Billy’s “Super Sounds of the Seventies…and dousing officer “Mahvin…Marvin Nassshhh” with gasoline after cutting off his ear. I can hear the words echo…”Hey, What’s goin’ on? You hear that?”

I mean, music can have a grand impact on your memory…and the associations you make as a child stick with you for a lifetime. For any Richard Wagner fans reading this…what do you think of as Wagner’s most memorable work? For the average person, I would have to say the winner of the poll would be “Ride of the Valkyries” from Act III of Die Walkure. Its not that it conjures memories similar to those I have for Beethoven’s 9th as I performed it with the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Thomas Conlin back in 1994. No…these are far more vivid memories involving speakers blaring Wagner as 8 or 10 Huey’s attack a Vietnamese village in Apocalypse Now because “it scares the hell out of the slopes!” Seriously, who can hear the opening strings without that feeling building inside of you because you know with all certainty that you are about to hear Robert Duvall as Lt. Colnel Bill Kilgore say those famous words, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning!” I fondly remember being forbidden to watch Apocalypse Now when I was around ten or eleven years old…so I set the VCR to record it after I had gone to bed and stayed up the next night to watch it at my grandmother’s house. I certainly have no regrets.

I am beginning to realize that I could go on for days about this whole concept. I mean…I think about how cool it would be to have transition music as you move from room to room, building to building, scene to scene in your life…like the cool upright bass sounds in the Guy Ritchie movie Snatch…or any of the Ocean 11 movies. I fondly remember a time showing my father and stepmother a new club that I was about to open…and how we walked through the door to the opening horn blast from the Michael Buble’ version of “Foggy Day in London Town,” only to have the exact same horn blast happen as we walked back into the main room after finishing the tour of the lower level…and my stepmother asking if I planned it to happen that way. I think of how cool it would be to have Soul Coughing‘s “Super Bon Bon” play every time you left a building and began to walk…no…swagger down the street. (I only say these things…because sometimes this is what actually happens in my mixed up brain.) I mean…music plays into everything for me. Grand Theft Auto IV would never be the same without the ability to kill prostitutes and take their money while listening to  Jazz Nation Radio with Celebrity DJ  and Legendary Jazz Drummer Roy Haynes and other jazz greats. There are appropriate track for getting ready in the morning…or when you are about to go out at night. My memory flashes to a long time friend and one of my  early bartenders, Jenny, who was such a crazy, amazingly artistic person, singing Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get it On” into her hair brush as we were getting ready to go out one night.

Back in high school…I remember having days…or even weeks sometimes, off from school because of snow…and before I had my license, doing donuts in the local shopping center parking lot was in order in my friend Dave’s mustang with the windows down and Pantera‘s “Cowboys from Hell” shaking the car, as the ice and snow kicked up from the tires hit us in the face through the open windows. I think about longer trips alone when the weather was so bad that hardly anyone by I dared even attempt the roads while listening to the Saigon Kick album The Lizard. The mood it set was just so amazingly perfect for that kind of a scene.

Summer days are a whole other story. I can’t imagine leaving the house before noon on a sunny day without pulling out of the driveway to a track like Keith Urban‘s “Somebody Like You,” or even  “Dizz Knee Land” from Dada…or dirty summer afternoons to the song “Posters” from the same album.  I often find newer summer favorites that you just can’t help but really feel…like “I’m Yours” from Jason Mraz. There are also other summer favorites that just feel right…be that in town or at the beach…like damn near anything from Jack Johnson, or the band Everything’s “Smile”…and my all time favorite “Spent” from their album Labrador…or the imagined work free summer evenings listening to “Dame tu Corazon?”…or anything else with an island feel. My more social summer activities make me think along the lines of Counting Crows “Hangin’ Around.” More laid back summer evenings call for James Taylor…or Bob Marley…which strikes most that know me as odd, given I’ve never actually smoked pot…but there’s just something about “Three Little Birds” that lets you now “every little thing…is gonna be alright.” I think, for those of you that have never had the experience, look a little further back into the career of Sugarland’s Kristian Bush. The band Billy Pilgrim, featuring Bush with fellow singer/songwriter (and Meg Ryan‘s brother) Andrew Hyra had a stellar first album with incredibly songs like “Insomniac” that will forever be etched on my summer soul.

I have a lot of favorites that bring back memories of years spent performing for thousands, upon thousands of people…or even sometimes just hundreds…or tens…but experiences like a medley of Motown hits I performed when I was touring with one band in particular…especially a very rockin’ version of “Can’t Get Next to You” from The Temptations.

I think a lot about love songs as well…and how some songs often seem to carry me through the progression of a relationship…through all of the good and the bad.  For Danyell…there was “Slide” from the Goo Goo Dolls in the beginning. I remember driving from a show at Knoebel’s Amusement Park in north east Pennsylvania where her and I first met, to a show at the Montgomery County Fair in Maryland with the top down and that song on repeat the whole trip. I had a terrible sunburn and hardly had a voice left by the time I pulled in for soundcheck…but those times felt good…so good. Later on…there were CD’s that she made for me, specifically as a soundtrack to the fun things she used to plan for us…like the disc filled with the best of Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Teddy Pendergrass, and Barry White…or the inside joke of the CD she titled Suzie the Freak, featuring just enough songs to make for the start of an incredible night, including “Control” from Puddle of Mudd, “Figured You Out” by Nickelback, “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails, “You Shook Me All Night Long” from AC/DC…then…after all of those songs repeated…she threw in “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” from Big & Rich for good measure…along with a sexy schoolgirl outfit…and a fairly innocent woman stepping into a wholly different side of herself for playtime. That relationship led to so many other songs that will be forever etched in my memory. I was on the verge of becoming a married man when I performed Richard Julien‘s “The Second Smallest State” at an acoustic show for her in Pittsburgh. In retrospect, I don’t think she was really listening.  “Home” by Michael Buble’ was the song that led to me taking a long hiatus from life as a touring musician.  “Fast Cars and Freedom” by Rascal Flatts as our relationship progressed into something far more than I had ever dreamed…and the contrast of “What Hurts the Most” as we began to slowly fall apart. After giving things another shot, I remember picking “At Last” by Etta James as our wedding song…and then there was “That’s How Strong My Love Is” from Otis Redding as we began to fall apart again…although “Jessie” from Joshua Kadison may well have been far more appropriate for the dynamic between her and I. As my heart continued to sink and I started to get a grasp on the reality of our situation, U2’s “One” hit me like a…like a…two ton…uh…heavy thing. Then…there was “Shattered (Turn the Car Around)” from OAR that I think finally helped me put things in perspective. There were times my friend Jason Kendall‘s song “Off White Wedding Gown” crept into my mind as well…but sometimes things just never seem to happen at the right time. I do seem to find comfort in “the only blessing I have left to my name…not knowing what we could have been…what we should have been,” as in Keith Urban‘s “You’ll Think of Me.”

For Korrin Elizabeth…there was Ani DiFranco‘s “32 Flavors”…and was she ever. Unapologetically Kor…to the core…and “Magnolia Street” from Catie Curtis as we began to fall into something bigger than the both of us. There really are endless soundtracks to her and I…Van Morrison‘s “Crazy Love” as well as “Tupelo Honey.” I fondly remember our first night together…and all of the botched songs I attempted for her…and finally making it through John Mayer‘s “Your Body is a Wonderland” before setting down my guitar. The song “Corey’s Coming” by Harry Chapin somehow always brings tears to my eyes…not just the bridge…but also the thoughts of her mother giving her the name because she really wanted another boy. Thinking more on thoughts of our love…I ceremoniously seek a Dashboard Confessional, as “Hands Down” she was always something incredible that I’ll never forget “As Lovers Go.” In the end, I fell into  Third Eye Blind‘s “Motorcycle Drive By,” among others to get me through, although her song to me at the time was “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing,” by Jack Johnson. We still speak though, and occasionally feel the need to call when one of those songs comes on the radio and we end up flooded with thoughts of what was and what never came to be. The Counting Crows song “Anna Begins” she once confessed always makes her think of us. As a result of the connection we share, “There’s a piece of Elizabeth, in every song that I sing.”

I think I would be remiss if I failed to mention songs like “Wind That Shakes the Barley” from Irish Folk legends Solas…whom I met years ago at the DC Irish Folk Festival through then girlfriend, now up and coming folk legend Rachel Eddy. Blind Faith‘s “Can’t Find My Way Home,” as performed by House of Lords is also a very hard hitting song for me…or “All About the Benjamins (Rock Remix)” which always seems to creep into my CD player anytime I open a new business…or countless other songs that mean the world to me…or just seem to fit the mood of the moment…or the misery that I chose to wallow in. What does all of this mean? I mean…seriously…you are still reading…most likely waiting for the deeper meaning in all of this. Here’s the fortune in the middle of this cookie. Hopefully you are enjoying the cookie enough to finish it after the words of wisdom I want to bestow upon you.  If you haven’t already opened your mind up to this line of thinking…then you really should give it a whirl. How will this affect your every day life? The drive you get from finding the right song for the right moment is incredible. If you haven’t felt it , you are really missing out. Some of us balance the insanity of the constant radio station in our head with every day, “real” life. William Dement was once quoted as saying, “Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.” I make no solid claim in saying that living in this sort of altered reality is safe, or sane…but it sure as hell has made my life far more interesting than those who choose to sit in a quiet room or drive their cars with no audio track…so as you take a late night summer drive with the top down, insert Dynamix II: Machine Language Track V. “Alone (Waiting in Limbo)” and you’ll really feel what I’m talking about.

For musicians, looking at the world through your now altered set of eyes, you may well find songs that creep their way into your set lists that mean way more to you than anything else in the world at that moment in time…and allow you to develop a connection with your audience that you’d never otherwise experience. The ones that hit me the hardest often take me back to red letter dates in my life…like a time machine, allowing me to relive memories in a way that I never would otherwise. Pure Prairie Leagues’ “Aime” does that to me…or “Sunshine” from Jonathan Edwards, which takes me back to the time I first considered taking a hiatus from touring. “Gravel” from Ani DiFranco is always a shocker when fans hear me talk about how it relates to my life, as I explain the marring of the sex roles in the song to fit a girl I was dating…who was also dating a girl on the side.  “Ain’t No Sunshine” from Bill Withers has been a widely requested song for me which takes me to a place that I don’t know if I can even explain. In a semi-unrelated story, I was shocked one night after performing it only to be complimented by my new friend Todd for my choice in songs…only to find out later that he was the son of Bill Withers. “Wherever You Will Go” from The Calling takes me back to a few shows we played in Ocean City, MD with Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons…and how incredible it felt to be barely awake at a 9am soundcheck…knowing it was the only song at the time that I could squeeze notes out of at that time of the morning, only to look up and see my girlfriend at the time playing the ultimate rock star wife, as her and a small parade of children, including her son, daughter…and all of their friends they could squeeze in the SUV sitting in the front row, complete with signs for the show that the kids had made for myself and the drummer, my longtime friend, Steve Moore. The song “Need Your Love” from the aforementioned Billy Pilgrim‘s second album Bloom seems to pull me right off the stage and onto my back patio overlooking the wooded hillside as the sun rises, or sets on a warm summer day. The Marshall Tucker Band‘s  “Can’t You See” and Simon & Garfunkel‘s “The Boxer” bring me to certain moments of defeat in my life that I sometimes wish I could forget. As mentioned earlier, “You’ll Think of Me” from Keith Urban hits home with one particular relationship in my life. There are so many…I’m sure once this goes live, I will regret for years not mentioning something else.

Looking back on my early life, I think about how songs played in my head all day to get me through the madness of total silence and the buzz of florescent lights that just flat out makes me crazy. I have never really ever experienced total silence…at least not that my memory can recall. As I continue to share my narcissism with you, I remember how I used to think of my life as so special that it would be featured in one of those cheesy after school specials…and the whole day of school was just the prologue to something amazing that was sure to happen after I made the sunny trip home to my family. As with many of the good things in my life, I have my mother to blame. She has shared her eclectic taste in music with me since I was a newborn. I have reserved so many spots in my heart for just the right girl because of the values she has instilled in me. “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane,” be that John Denver; or Peter, Paul, and Mary falls into those songs that I will only sing to one woman in my life…other than when I’m sharing childhood memories with mom of course. Other songs and lessons I remember from my preschool years include “One Tin Soldier” of Billy Jack fame…and from a childrens show I only recall hearing about, but never seeing…which, if my memory serves me correctly, was performed by a heavy set African-American woman who’s life was cut tragically short after she was hit by a car. (Any information to support or refute my recollection of this would be greatly appreciated.) There was also “Reuben James” from Kenny Rogers and The First Edition. I remember being turned on to rock through the hypnotic organ on “Light My Fire” from The Doors which I found in my mother’s record collection. I used to get the idea that I could write scripts and story lines for television when I was ten or eleven years old as well. I remember explaining to my mom how “Murder by Numbers” from The Police would be so perfect for an episode of Miami Vice because of the obvious subject matter and the dark, reggae feel of the song. My heart was nearly broken when she broke the news to me that it wouldn’t quite work with that particular show, as they were vice cops, not homicide detectives.  I also remember going through an extended period of childhood when I felt it was my calling to be a soldier…and spending hours with my cassette deck on record/pause as I continually requested “The Ballad of the Green Beret” from Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler…only to be disappointed when my mother finally bought the cassette for me to find that her version just sounded so much better to me. It was ultimately my love of music that kept me from pursuing a military career. Maybe that was her plan all along???

My father was not entirely free from my musical influences either. Though there was a significant gap in the time we spent together in my life from childhood until adulthood…I can never seem to get certain imagery out of my head when I hear The Statler Brothers doing “Flowers on the Wall.” No its not Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction before he “had to crash that Honda,” but rather thoughts of sitting outside of a Foodland in my hometown as he sang to the 8 track in his light blue metallic 1979 Chevy Malibu. One other dominant memory in my mind is Procol Harum‘s “Whiter Shade of Pale” and his deep voice singing it as he recorded it from the radio on my cassette deck as he showed me how to use the record/pause function to not miss the beginning of a song. There is a strange, almost eerie feeling of emptiness that fills my soul when I hear that song. Perhaps it is the chord/melody choice…or the somewhat ethereal lyrics…or maybe its just that it was one of the few childhood memories that I do have of he and I. Maybe it was just a weird sort of haunting preview to my future life and those nights when the things you love the most take the most out of you and you find yourself “feeling kind of seasick…as the crowd calls out for more.” On a slightly more uplifting note, I find it hard to believe that it is merely coincidence that Filters “Take a Picture” and Peter Gabriel‘s “Solsbury Hill” work so well together as sort of a bizarre medley with an odd twist, though I may just be “Digging in the Dirt.”

So what is the purpose of all of this? What is the purpose of it all? I can’t imagine a life without music…or at least not one that I’d want to live. I find that all of my motivation is multiplied tenfold with the appropriate soundtrack…much like the emotional highs and lows inspired by a film with just the right application of song. I can say that most people that I’ve encountered who’s own lives have been as influenced by music as mine appear to live a far more motivated and fulfilling life. So…for myself, the thought of a soundtrack playing as the events of my life are being filmed has carried me through the worst of times, as well as made my happiness so much more intense during the best of times. This frame of mind has allowed me to not just let my life live me…but has let me really live my life and get the most out of the experience…to really feel the raw emotion of every moment as if scripted to cleverly fill the plot lines of some incredibly eclectic film. Maybe some day, just that will happen, although I’m sure it could never be as incredible as actually having been there. I’m sure by the time most of the life that I have found the most interesting has made its way to the cutting room floor, it will be nothing more than another one of those intriguing movies that I ponder over often…but somehow feel I can never get inside of the writer’s mind. Well…with this film I’m sure I will be able to get inside of the main character’s  mind at least, but as for those who live outside of my own mind…I wish you the best of luck in even taking all of this in…let alone actually comprehending everything through a similar set of eyes…but if you are still reading this, there may well be a chance for you. Regardless of whether or not you can accept this epic blog as some sort of semblance of a new frame of mind in which to live…I do certainly hope you’ve enjoyed the musical trip and taken advantage of the links to some old favorites, and perhaps a few new musical discoveries to take into your own personal experience and share with others during the filming of your own life. Enjoy!