Listening to the music

Oddly one of the hardest things I've experienced lately has been listening to music. Every song that plays wherever I am reminds me of him in some way. It might be a song he liked, it might be the lyrics - somehow they all remind me of him or us. OK, except most rap music... which he didn't care for much :) but see? even that reminds me of him!

Yesterday on the way home "Only the Good Die Young" came on my radio. Seriously. I haven't heard that song in years. And there it was on my radio.

One of my favorite songs now has a very personal meaning - If I Die Young by the Band Perry...  "The sharp knife of a short life..."a sharp knife is right.

Garth Brooks was one of Mike's favorites. He'd always wanted to see him live and never got to. "If tomorrow never comes" will always remind me of him. "And if my time on earth were through, and she must face the world without me. Is the love I gave her in the past gonna be enough to last... If tomorrow never comes" Tomorrow never came for Mike after Easter Sunday. His love will last my whole life, though. And it gets me through each day that I now face without him.

And then there's "When you come back to me again" -
"On a prayer, In a song, I hear your voice,
And it keeps me hanging on.
Oh, raining down, against the wind.
I’m reaching out, ‘Till we reach the circle’s end.
When you come back to me again."

Our wedding song was "True Companion" by Marc Cohen. And strangely at the end of the song there is this line "Then when I leave this earth, I'll be with the angels standing. I'll be out there waiting for my true companion. Just for my true companion"

Andy Griggs "She's More" was a song Mike played for me after we'd first started dating and he said it was his song for me. And when I listened to the lyrics I couldn't believe it - like the song was written for us.

"I like blue eyes, hers are green
Not like the woman of my dreams
And her hair's not quite as long as I had planned

Five foot three isn't tall
She's not the girl I pictured at all
In those paint by number fantasies I've had

So it took me by complete surprise
When my heart got lost in those deep green eyes
She's not at all what I was looking for
She's more

No, it wasn't at first sight
But the moment I looked twice
I saw the woman I was born to love

Her laughter fills my soul
And when I hold her I don't wanna let go
When it comes to her I can't get enough

So it took me by complete surprise
When my heart got lost in those deep green eyes
She's not at all what I was looking for
She's more

More than I dreamed of
More than any man deserves
I couldn't ask for more
Than a love like hers

So it took me by complete surprise
When my heart got lost in those deep green eyes
She's not at all what I was looking for
She's more"

Eric Church "So we sit on his headstone with a fifth of Jack D. Here's to a long line of sinners like me" That's Mike, alright. "'Cause guys like me drink too many beers on Friday after work. Our best blue jeans have skoal rings. We wear our boots to church. So rough around the edges, It's hard to believe that girls like you love guys like me"

And then there were some really funny memories.
~Pink's "True Love" was one that I heard one day last year and immediately had to play for Mike exclaiming 'it's our song!' - just a sample lyric 'You're an asshole, but I love you'. It was us to a T.
~When one of us would say 'I love you' the other would often answer 'you better, you better, you bet'. (Thanks to the Who for that one).
~Our kids LOVE the song Wagon Wheel. We'd dance around the living room to it together as they both yelled at us to stop. We were so embarrassing for a 2 and 5 year old!
~Mike liked David Allen Coe (yeah, I know, not very PC :)) and we'd always quote the Rodeo song when we had bad days  "Piss me off, fucking jerk, get on my nerves!"


Then one night we got in a HUGE discussion, somewhere we heard 'Money for Nothing' and were singing along. And Mike says 'Who sings this?' We played that game a lot - the 'who sung it' game. I say 'Dire Straits'. Nope, you're wrong he says. Ah *cough* no, I'm right I say. He says no, its Phil Collins. Honey, no it's not, this is Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits. Yes it is. NO IT'S NOT. Finally I got my phone out and showed him. And he says, pull up the live video. And Goddam if Phil Collins wasn't playing the drums in the damn video. So he conceded that I won that argument, since it was, in fact, Dire Straits. But I had to give him points for the Phil Collins, lets be honest.

These are the things I realize on a daily basis - how many things remind me of him constantly. How big a part of my life he was, and is.