Blissed out on Song

So... I went on a small record buying binge yesterday, in anticipation of my "Holed up and Hiding out at Home" weekend that I'd planned. I won't have another day off after this for about a good 2 weeks, so I was feeling a need to just hunker down with the company of my dog and my stereo, and I wanted the soundtrack to be full of soulful, torchy stuff.

Hence, I just couldn't pass up buying Nina Simone's Sugar in My Bowl - one of her greatest hits anthologies... and the greatest hits of Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin's Queen in Waiting - more stuff from her Columbia years... and I was lucky to find, for just 5 bucks, the k.d. Lang album Drag. And damn, if I don't keep listening to that over and over (currently on my 6th listen in 24 hours) and saying to myself "... how in the hell did I not know about this, and how have I survived this long without it????". Her version of the song The Air that I Breathe is absolutely heart stopping, as is Nina Simone's I Shall be Released, as is Aretha Franklin's Drinking Again. Oh, what these songs do to me. They slay me; they take my breath away; they just make me want to melt into a puddle. Perfect songs for cold, crisp winter days and nights.

Tonight, I just can't bring myself to make the soup I'd planned to make. Listening to these perfectly delivered songs, it's hard to feel like I could want or need anything else but this music. It's the kind of night where I find myself just wanting to lay down on the floor in the living room with the stereo cranked up loud, a fire in the fireplace and my head in between the speakers. Blissed out. Not caring about all those projects that I was so gung ho to dive into. Not caring about all the things that have made my heart feel heavy lately. Letting the music be the elixir that makes everything feel absolutely perfect just the way it is. There aren't many better feelings than this, and so tonight I'm just going to surrender to song. I can think of worse ways to spend an evening...