Songs That Touch My Soul, Ten

We all have them, songs that seem to touch a secret place in your soul – sometimes secret even from you. They can grow and occasionally fester like an open wound, or they can fill you up, inspire you and occasionally even heal you. Sometimes they don't even reflect your musical tastes. They can be shameful secrets that you keep from family and friends. You feel like a drug addict craving your next fix. At times like those you thank the powers that be for MP3 players - the syringe of those suffering with this affliction.

This is the tenth installment of songs that touch my soul and as always this edition is full of passion, desire, and lust, and this issue also reflects a personal change of direction... romantically speaking. This is a form of therapy, this sharing of my neuroses, my secret inner lunacy, the big ball of crazy that is me.

“Faithfully” — Journey

I can hear the groans of disgust from my male readership all the way from here. Yes it's cheesy, squishing, rotten with overwrought heartache, but sometimes that's what a girl wants. Even this girl. Now normally I would never condone listening to a power-ballad, with its schmaltzy sentimentality and emaciated honesty but this one is different. Is it Steve Perry's powerful, gravelly-raw voice, or the open, artlessness of Jonathan Cain's (Journey's keyboard player and primary songwriter) lyrics. Whatever it is, Journey did this one right. You won't find any of the Bryan Adam's pie-sky-lie-die style rhyming lyrics a la “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”.

“Faithfully” offers the unvarnished truth, it's hard to be apart, but I love you, we can make it work. “And being apart ain't easy on this love affair/ Two strangers learn to fall in love again/ I get the joy of rediscovering you/ Oh, girl, you stand by me/ I'm forever yours – faithfully”. That touches a tiny optimistic part of my skeptical soul. I just want to believe it could happen, someone could love me that much too.

Article Author: A.L. Harper

I'm a writer and music journalist originally from Salt Lake City, but now living in Scotland. I was a Punk/Goth in the '80s and these artistic influences have stayed with me; although a love of Chopin, chamber music, and Spanish guitar would seem to belie this. …

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