It's been just about a month that my niece started her first year of college. Five hours away from the house she spent the majority of her life in and just over 300 miles from her family. As expected, the transition has been a bit rough for her. I think even independent young folks who are ready to fly away still feel a bit of trepidation when they are first out on their own.
I told her shortly before she left, I wish I could give her some advice, but @mrsbozz and I both went to community universities where the majority of attendees commute from home. In fact, I lived with my parents until I was about 24 years old, so navigating the world of college life at her age is an absolute mystery to me.
When my wife let me know that she was getting a care package together to send to our niece, I decided I was going to do something totally crazy and write her a letter. Not a typed up letter, not a short note wishing her well, no, an actual two page front and back hand written letter. In pen no less, with spelling errors, crossed out incomplete thoughts, and everything that goes along with it.
I can't tell you the last time I wrote that much. I used to write quite a lot of letters in my younger days. I had young ladies in countless cities across the state that I would correspond with. After close to 17 years of marriage, it is safe to say I am out of practice. As I sat at the table throwing down my thoughts, my hand started to cramp up. My good HIVE friend @dbooster would probably point out that I should have been using a fountain pen. They require less pressure, therefore the fatigue isn't as great. At least I think that is what he would say.
Despite that, I threw down all the wisdom I could muster in a two page missive that should get shipped out later today. She is a pretty cool young lady, so I think she will appreciate it. I hope it makes her laugh a little, think a little, and yes selfishly, I hope it makes her cry a little to realize how important she and all my other nieces and nephews are to me.
In recent years this niece and I have really bonded over music. The problem is, she uses Apple iTunes music and I use Spotify. That doesn't make it very easy for us to be able to share playlists with each other. I always like to know what new stuff she is listening to, and it's a joy to introduce her to old bands that she has never heard before.
With that in mind, one side of one of the pieces of paper in her letter was a playlist. Yes, it will take her a little bit of time to find each song and add it to her queue, but even if she doesn't like them all, I hope she finds some gems in there. I picked some of the songs that mean the most to me either because of the lyrics, or the time in my life when they came across my speakers.
With that in mind, I'm going to share three of them with you for this #threetunetuesday post sponsored by @ablaze.
As I have said about a million times before, Counting Crows is one of my favorite bands of all time. Despite it being massively overplayed back in the day, "Mr. Jones" is still a banger for me. I have always been drawn to lead singer Adam Duritz's distinctive voice and the way he can write a lyric. His words tell stories that rip at your emotions and just kind of get into your skin a bit. I'm sure others might disagree with me on this, but they probably have their own favorite artist that they feel the same way about. My top three for doing this would be Counting Crows, U2, and probably Taylor Swift. With Bon Jovi being a close fourth.
"With Love from A to Z" is Counting Crows latest single and after spending some time with some more experimental stuff, this song feels a lot more like their older sound. I really love it especially for the chorus and this line in particular:
"I may leave you a lot, but I won't leave you alone".
That's the main reason I included this song for her in the playlist. I hope she knows that though I don't see her all the time (and probably even less now) I am still proud of her and thinking of her.
I'm pretty sure I have probably shared this song before on Three Tune Tuesday, but as I said before, U2 is one of the bands that have a very special place in my heart. I wanted to avoid some of the more common songs that she may have heard before on the radio. so I settled on "Running to Stand Still".
My niece is a sucker for all of that angsty modern music, so I thought she really might appreciate some older stuff with the same vibe. This song is actually about a couple addicted to heroine, but it has that mood and vibe that I really think she will enjoy. I hope she does anyway. Despite the success of With or Without You, and I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, I think it's one of the best songs on the Joshua Tree album.
I'm also pretty sure I have shared this song with you before as well, but after two or three years of doing this, that isn't too surprising. It just recently that my niece and I both confessed our love of artists that have really distinct voices. She had just taken a deep dive into Bob Dylan, and I also introduced her to Van Morrison, but I can't think of a more distinctive voice than Willie Nelson.
It was only natural that "Angel Flying Too Close To the Ground" should find its way onto the playlist for her. It's classic Willie and I honestly think that speaks for itself.
My Sports Account - @bozz.sports
All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced