A to Z Afterthoughts/Honorable Mentions

The list I worked from for this project

I fully intended to have this post up on May 1st but I didn't get it done in time and to be honest, I've enjoyed having a few days without any blogging obligations. I spent almost six months working on these posts, off and on, so it feels strange to not have to do any more! Over all, I'm pleased with how they turned out. I got a lot of feedback, mostly from people I already know, and I can tell my friends enjoyed reading about my favorite songs and learning some of the stories behind who I am. I'm disappointed I didn't get more comments from new readers, through the A to Z Challenge. I was hoping my personal stories would resonate with more people and initiate discussion.

For almost every song I wrote about, I Tweeted my blog link to the artist. I was hoping at least a couple would read their posts. My theory behind that is that if someone were moved enough by something I wrote to blog about it, I would love to know that. The only response I got was that Liz Phair favorited my post about her song, but that's pretty awesome!

If you know me well, you know how connected I feel to Dave Matthews Band so you may have noticed that only one of their songs made my list. A friend asked me if I made a conscious decision not to include many of their songs and the answer is yes. When I initially made my A to Z list, I went through the alphabet and jotted down songs that came to mind for each letter. When I was finished, some letters had one or two songs and some had five or six, but each letter had at least one song by Dave Matthews Band or Better Than Ezra! They are my two favorite bands and I feel a strong connection to them both. I decided not to include many songs by either band mostly because there is a lot of music that came before them in my life, that shaped who I am and led me to their music. Also because people who know me already know how I feel about those bands and I wanted to add some variety and share stories about me that others probably didn't know.

Because it was difficult to narrow my list to just 27 songs, I feel the need to recognize some of the ones that almost made the list. There are some songs that deserve mentioning just because they are plain awesome. The opening cords to Sweet Child O'Mine get me fired up every time. The same goes with Pour Some Sugar On Me, it will rock forever.  So What by Pink got me through a tough break up by reminding me of how awesome I am. 32 Flavors by Alana Davis is runner up for Theme Song for my life  (yes, I know it's a Ani DiFranco cover but I like it better!).  During my pre-teen years I would sing You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling into curling irons with my friend Loni, who is now a professional musician. I could go on and on...My point is there is an endless supply of amazing music in the world and I hope I was able to introduce you to some new songs and make you smile in the process!