Theme Songs of Life

In Jan 2007 I selected the song Better Days by the GooGoo Dolls:

And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
And desire and love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

In Jan 2008 I selected the song Small Wonders, by Rob Thomas, an artist I didn't grow to really appreciate till this year. It's also the theme song from Meet the Robinsons, ironically a movie about a child who was orphaned:

let it go, let it roll right off your shoulder
don’t you know, the hardest part is over
let it in, let your clarity define you
in the end, we will only just remember how it feels

our lives are made
in these small hours,
these little wonders,
these twists & turns of fate,
time falls away,
but these small hours,
these small hours still remain

Jan 2009, no song selected, who knew how prophetic that was. No one could have guessed all the changes, all the stress nor all the paths I might get to choose to walk down. No single song would have captured it.

But Jan 2010? It's easy:

Everybody Has a Dream, Billy Joel

While in these days of quiet desperation
As I wander through the world in which I live
I search everywhere for some new inspiration
But it's more than cold reality can give
If I need a cause for celebration
Or a comfort I can use to ease my mind
I rely on my imagination
And I dream of an imaginary time

(So many times, too many times, I found myself wondering through life, sort of just a passenger on a train and it's destination unknown. As for an imaginary time, well sometimes what you imagine, what you dream, really is possible. Fate and hard work have to be aligned, and it may not all work out even when aligned, but it can happen and that's what makes dreaming so wonderful. The imaginary times? They pull us all through.)

Oh oh, and I know that everybody has a dream
Everybody has a dream, everybody has a dream
And this is my dream, my own
Just to be at home and to be all alone with you

(To Magpie, if you make it home, make it into my life, and I into your life, well, this is my dream, and it is my own, just to be at home, with you. I've learned the all too hard way that really, not much else matters in life except for one's greatest dreams. Really.)

If I believe in all the words I'm saying
And if a word from you can bring a better day
Then all I have are these games that I've been playing
To keep my hope from crumbling away
So let me lie and let me go on sleeping
And I will lose myself in palaces of sand
And all the fantasies that I will be keeping
Will make the empty hours easier, easier to stand

(Palaces of sand, I love that vision. I think of sand castles as a kid and sand castles of the future. And it all keeps my hope from crumbling away. These empty hours, they are so hard, but at the same time, they've made me appreciate so much more completely the hours that are not empty.)