Better Together - Top Songs and Lyrics for Friendships

The way I see it, friendship is one of the most important things in the world; possibly the most important!  Strong social support networks are vital for our psychological wellbeing, as is being thankful for the positive things we have.  I cherish my friends dearly and have put together a collection of songs and lyrics that reflect this.  For some people these will apply nicely to romantic relationships too, but since I don’t have one of those at the moment they’re limited to my friendships! 

Time After Time

The original of course was by Cyndi Lauper, but check out Quietdrive’s version for something a bit different.  “If you’re lost you can look and you will find me time after time”.

 

Tethered

Elliot Minor was my favourite band in their day, and this is definitely one of my favourite songs of theirs.  “If you’re walking through the cold, you should have to walk alone you know; it’s dark but not so dark when we’re together”.

Today Won’t Come Again

A beautiful rendition of a beautiful song performed by Jonathan Ansell and Hayley Westenra at the Festival of Remembrance.

Frank D. Fixer

A lovely, chilled song by Mr Jason Mraz.  “Well I wish I was a fixer; I would fix you up inside”.

 
Better Together

“It’s always better when we’re together” – simple!

 

Talk

This song is made up of some lovely lyrics about supporting someone through hard times. 

Sharks

By the lovely Philippa Hanna.  “I’d move the earth to take away the pain you’re going through; I would even die for you”.

  

Fall and I Will Catch You

By Kristian Leontiou.  Beautiful voice, beautiful lyrics and beautiful instrumentals.

Yellow

A Coldplay classic!  “For you I’d bleed myself dry”.

Millionaires

A song all about fun times and a lyric that for me epitomises the value of friendship:  “I swear you may think you’re rich; could have a million euro but you can’t buy this”.    

Just Hold On - Songs to Help You Through Hard Times!

Here, in the second in my series of musical posts, I'm going to share with you a bunch of songs that I find heartening and uplifting during times of difficulty.  They really have and still do help me through tough times and I hope they'll do the same for you.


Porcelain by Matt Cardle: Really heartening lyrics, all about finding strength through hard times

Just Hold On by Toploader:  Nice and upbeat to lift the spirits

The Climb by Miley Cyrus:  I prefer the Olly Murs version from his X Factor final!

All The Things That Mean The Most by Gloriana:  Because sometimes you need to let go of the worries and be grateful for the positive things and people around you

 

Lately by Matt Cardle:  'Lately, it won't come together... But it's gonna get better' 

 

Happy by Leona Lewis:  Because we have to to the rough with the smooth and go through some pain to achieve happiness

All She Wrote by Ross Copperman:  Someone will always be around who cares for you, whether you feel like there is or not 

Hold On by Olly Murs:  Hold on; you're gonna get through it! 

Invisible by Hunter Hayes:  Last but definitely not least - this song is so incredible I just have to add it even though it's nearly a year since I first made this post!

Live Life as a Tuneful Melody (Something to Inspire and Motivate!)

I’ve always liked this little lyric from Ross Copperman’s song Ordinary - Live life as a tuneful melody - I like it because it reflects both the notion of living vivaciously and my passion for music, both of which are important to me! 

Music and lyrics are such powerful things.  I love how a song can change the way I feel and often express my feelings better that I can myself!  Based on this, I thought I’d put together a little mini-series of posts to share some of my favourite songs and lyrics for different situations and life events.  A little but different from my usual ramblings; I hope you enjoy them!  

I’ll start today with a few lyrics to inspire and motivate.  As someone aspiring to change the world (!!), these are some of my favourite lyrics!

“You can be a master, don't wait for luck / Dedicate yourself and you gon' find yourself / Standing in the hall of fame  / And the world's gonna know your name / 'Cause you burn with the brightest flame  ... You can be the hero, you can get the gold / Breaking all the records they thought never could be broke / Do it for your people, do it for your pride / How you ever gonna know if you never even try?” – Hall of Fame by The Script Ft will.i.am

“The world is in your hands / The world is in your hands / The world belongs to those of us who still believe we can” – Join With Us by The Feeling.

“I will not be beaten / You have yet to see my shining; shining / I won’t take this lying down” – Shining by Kristian Leontiou

“You’re just a fool, just a fool to believe you can change the world / Don’t listen to them when they say you’re just a fool, just a fool to believe you can change the world / Oh, the smallest thing can make all the difference / Love is alive, don’t listen to them when they say you’re just a fool, just a fool to believe you can change the world” – Change by Carrie Underwood

“I’ll spread my wings and I’ll learn how to fly / I’ll do what it takes till I touch the sky / Gonna make a wish, take a chance, make a change / And break away” – Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson

“You’re the voice, try and understand it / Make a noise and make it clear” – You’re The Voice by John Farnham

“Live; I wanna lived inspired / Die; I wanna die for something / Higher than myself / Live and die for anyone else / The more I live I see / This life’s not about me” - Burn Out Brighter (Northern Lights) by Anberlin

“And if he should stumble as he goes / If he should fall / It won’t really matter if he knows he gave it his all ... / Let no man surround himself with pain / But use it to free him / The game is to learn to live again / To try to the end / A race to the end / The game is to learn to live again / A race to the end” - Race to the End by Jonathan Ansell

We Are Amazing

Hello readers!  Apologies for my long silence – most of my time and energy have been taken up with work and cycle training recently – but there is no excuse for not writing and I will endeavour to post a bit more regularly in the future (people tell me one of the best ways to get good blog readership is to post regularly, so I hope I still have some despite my atrocious irregularity!!).

I should take a leaf from his book and blog more often!

I’d like to clarify that the fact I haven’t published anything on here in a while doesn’t mean I’ve lost my enthusiasm for the things I write about.  I suppose I’ve had less energy to think and write about these things because work has been tough going, but right now I’m sort of feeling a new lease of life and hoping it lasts!

Recently I’ve met and had discussions with a fair few people who share my views on mental health, body image, etc.  The feeling I get is there are a lot of us, which makes it even more frustrating that things aren’t changing more quickly.  Anyway, my favourite encounter happened a few weeks ago when I discovered a new musical hero, who by fortunate coincidence was the support act at a gig I went to.  She goes by the name Philippa Hanna, and one of her songs in particular struck a chord with me (pin not intended!!).  Well, more to the point, the sentiment behind the song struck a chord (this is one thing I really like about this girl - she is a proper singer-songwriter and gave a little synopsis of each song before performing it - nice touch!). 

Philippa talked of how in the past she would do things like go on crazy diets to try and conform to the image of ‘beauty’ prescribed by the media.  Sometimes she thought that she couldn’t get a record deal because physically she wasn’t beautiful enough.  Then, she tells us, she realised it wasn’t necessary to do this, that she was beautiful the way she was, that each one of us should be happy with ourselves because “no one else can be you”.  She then wrote a lovely song called I Am Amazing, which illustrates her change of heart and encourage others to challenge negative thoughts about themselves.  I don’t feel I’ve done this justice as I remember Philippa putting it a lot more nicely and eloquently than I have!  But the point is that there are just too many people striving for unrealistic and impossible ideals of ‘beauty’ because it is drummed into is culturally that this is what we should do.  We need to break free from this viscous circle of media distortion and unhealthy behaviour. 

Let's stop striving for unrealistic ideals of physical beauty

Mental illness is on the up, particularly amongst young people, and I feel that this problem is a big contributing factor to this.  Probably my favourite lyric from the song is Not gonna listen to the voices of my enemies today.  I see the harmful ideals being imposed on people by today’s Western culture almost as an enemy that needs to be challenged, and re-shaped into a healthier form.  This is one of several big cultural changes that I strongly feel need to take place, and I’m determined to contribute to making this happen.

After I saw Philippa Hanna perform, I was fortunate enough to have a brief but interesting conversation with her and told her how pleased I was to hear her speaking the way she had about body image and the media.  She mentioned to me that there have been attempts in the past to pass a law the required all airbrushed images to be labelled as such.  Sadly such a law has not been passed.  Personally I think this would be a very positive step towards reducing the current problem whereby such a great number of young people are taking unhealthy steps towards unobtainable ideals in appearance.  Perhaps my next step will be to start a petition to make this happen… Who’s with me?!