I loved the discussion that followed Ah, Girl but thought it was a shame that although we were talking about the power of music to communicate what words can’t, we were still depending on those poor, limited words. I purchased the songs I didn’t already own from iTunes and eMusic and listened to them while rereading the comments. I had such a good experience (I especially enjoyed the version of Isn’t She Lovely that Matt recommended, with his daughter splashing and cooing in the background) that I wondered how to share it with the rest of you without simply putting the mp3 files up for download (that would be naughty). After some research, I found the Flash-based XSPF Music Player on SourceForge that allows streaming of the music from a website. However, Wordpress doesn’t play nice with object tags–which is why I can’t embed YouTube videos, and why, after a couple hours of struggling, I had to post it in the sidebar.

So here’s my suggestion:

1. Go grab a cup of your favorite hot beverage (I’m drinking a loose-leaf vanilla Ceylon, but coffee, Postum, or vin chaud will do).
2. Get comfortable at your computer, preferably with headphones on.
3. Open up Ah, Girl and begin reading.
4. When you see a song or artist mentioned, scroll over to the sidebar, and just under the monthly calendar and above “Currently Reading,” click on that song in the playlist.
5. Reflect, ponder, feel warm spiritual fuzzies. Then move on to the next comment and next song.

I added a few more songs, because I have the power (muahahaha). Dave Matthews’ Seek Up has this haunting image:

Sit awhile with TV’s hungry child, big belly swelled
For the price of a Coke or a smoke keep alive those hungry eyes.

This song made me think of Sarah McLachlan’s World on Fire, on which Jana has posted. This made me think about McLachlan’s cover of XTC’s Dear God, another angry spiritual anthem of mine. I decided to stop there.