It’s contagious, so spread it!

Musically-speaking I heard a lot of positivity this weekend. Friday night I was lucky enough to go with my Dad — who’s friends with a high-up at the Recording Academy —  to the Musicare’s Person-of-The-Year Tribute to Carole King.

GOOD TIMES — GOOD SOUNDS

I knew of Carole King because my parents used to play her Tapestry Album over and over and over — plus they went to every James Taylor concert, so I knew she wrote for him too. But I had no idea Carole King wrote music for like 50 years for everyone from the Everly Brothers to Aretha Franklin to Blood Sweat and Tears to the Beatles… I mean the list just goes on and on. And the songs are ones we all know from growing up – they were blasting from our parents’ stereos, on the radio during carpool, in movies like The Big Chill and The Virgin Suicides.  When I listened to the words throughout the Tribute to Carole King, what really struck me was how positive her music is/was — especially if you compare it to what’s popular now, which in a lot of cases is negative, dark and more about sex than love, more about pleasure than feelings — it’s weird, we’re all still human, right?

Carole Kings song’s are minus expletives and racial slurs or negativity, and sure there’s heartbreak in her lyrics, but that’s part of romance. I miss romance…

And it’s not like she grew up with rose-colored glasses. Carole King grew up during troubled times, like the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War.  Still, her lyrics are surprisingly optimistic. Many of her songs were written more than 20 years ago, but they feel modern and relevant when performed by Pink (“So Far Away”), Lady Gaga (“You’ve Got A Friend”), Alicia Keys (“You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman”) and other contemporary musicians like Kacey Musgraves, Miguel, Leann Rhimes, will.i.am, Sarah Bareilles, Jakob Dylan, Jason Mraz……

Transcending time…

Carole’s classics (continually re-recorded by artists we all know) do make you stop and think about messages people really want to hear, right? I mean, if Gaga records “You’ve Got A Friend” — a whole world of younger fans will feel like they’re being spoken to and understood, and God knows we need that (maybe there will be a few less shootings at schools, wish-wish)!

Equal Opportunity for “HAPPILY EVER AFTER”

Sunday night on The Grammy’s (I didn’t go, just watched on TV like everyone else) my heart was so happy when Macklemore (“Same Love”) and Madonna (“Open Your Heart”) sang as Queen Latifah officiated at the wedding of thirty-three couples of various combinations of race, color, sex — it was beautiful!

As the couples said, “I do” — I felt the love and positivity and I’m telling you — it  felt GOOD!  Just ask Keith Urban who was crying tears of joy.

So I guess there is positivity in current music too… it just comes as a bit of a surprise — like the surprise weddings at the Grammys, right?

Yeah, Mom — I know you’re smiling right now — just thinking about me being all positive about positivity ; )