Then, 5

 Delirious Love,

Neil Diamond

This is the song that came on my iPod as I pulled into the parking lot at my office this morning -- as I pulled in, inexplicably, about 30 minutes earlier than I usually am.  Somehow, I got ready for work today and left for work today at least 30 minutes earlier than I usually do and I didn't realize it until I was almost at the office, when I looked at the clock and it said "8:02," which is earlier than I usually am even in my car.

I thought, momentarily, about turning around and going back home and leaving at the regular time but I decided instead to turn up this song and park my car and walk in, all with the song blaring in my ears.

There is probably no day that cannot be made better by beginning it with the sun shining, the weekend coming, and this song playing loudly as you walk along.

Then, 4

I Will Remain, Matthew & The Atlas:

I don't know where I first heard this song, but it came on one day on my iPod as I was driving home from work, and the handclapping just lifted me up and cheered me up, even though the song itself is kind of sad.

I like to listen to this song when I go for my walks at night.  It makes me think philosophical things.

Things like: one night, I saw a bird land on the path in front of me.  As I approached, the bird stood its ground, until I was about 3 feet away.  Then it hopped a foot or two ahead, and when I got close again, it kept doing that.

Neat, I thought.  It's not really afraid of me.

Then I realized that it was probably trying to lure me away from its nest to keep me from killing its children and that in fact it was very afraid of me.

Or things like:

Last night, I saw this tree that had one branch sticking way out, horizontal to the ground, as far out from the trunk as the trunk was tall.  By doing that, it had managed to get out from under the cover of the higher up branches, this one odd limb leaning way out into the sunset on the north side of the tree. 

So I walked along and thought about how hard that branch had worked to do its part to help the tree-- and how it had to do all that work fighting other parts of its own team.

Then, 3

"I'm On My Way," The Proclaimers:

 This song is barely featured in Shrek, which is the movie Mr Bunches and Mr F have been watching over and over since Saturday; on Saturday, I wanted to spend some time with Mr F, so we went up to his room and put Shrek in and watched it, and Mr Bunches joined us halfway through, and then Sweetie filtered in and watched, too, and now they've been watching that over and over since then.

Mr Bunches calls Shrek "Jack."

What's interesting to me about this song is how I found and re-found it.  We originally watched Shrek/Jack years ago with the older kids.  Then, a few years later, I put The Proclaimers' album on my iPod and heard I'm On My Way when I was jogging, and couldn't figure out where I'd heard it before.  Then I didn't listen to this song for a long time, until Saturday, when I watched Shrek with the boys and this song (or about 20 seconds of it) is in the movie.

Which made me go find it and make sure it was on my iPod again, and which also made me realize that when I heard it while running years ago it probably only seemed familiar because I had heard a snippet of it in Shrek/Jack.

So that's how it'll go with this song: Every few years, I'll rewatch Shrek/Jack and then relisten to this song and then it'll slowly fade away again.

Then, 2

Nikorette, by Conor Oberst:

The lyric, I don't want to dream if it don't come true, makes me wonder.

At first I thought That's wrong, I still want to dream even if it doesn't come true but then I thought no, only dreams that have a chance to come true should be in my head and I go back and forth on it.  Right now, I'm on dream away, even if there's no chance it'll come true.

Then, 1.

"Keeping Warm" by We Were Promised Jetpacks...

This is the song I listened to for about 1/2 of my jog the other night.  If you're going to think yourself healthy, as I am, then you've got to keep on exercising.  If you're going to keep on exercising, as I am, then you've got to have inspirational music to spur you on.  This song does the trick.

Added benefit: A while back, I heard a podcast that suggested that if you are having a bad day or very busy, you should listen to euro-techno kind of music because that background music makes it seem like what you're going through is simply a very exciting movie.  This song is even better for that.  I'm listening to it as I type this post and get ready to start doing a brief, and it makes my sitting at my desk in my office seem as though it's not just another Thursday, but instead is the beginning of the kind of movie where people end up, at some point, driving triumphantly across a bridge, the wind in their hair and an exciting new world ahead of them.

So there's that, too.