WARMER MIXTAPES #453 | by Malkovich Music of B.L.X.

This life isn't fair. Still haven't gotten over that. These songs don't help me accept it. But they help me live with it.
I love a whole bunch of songs, but these are family, the ones that stuck with me. Nobody ever loved these songs more than me.

1. Cesária Évora | Mar Azul
I don't play this song. Shuffle plays it on the occasional drunk Sunday, and from her first sigh I'm back home, adrift between worlds. There's no land in sight to this song. I can’t listen to it too often.

2. Nat King Cole | Nature Boy
This song finally gave me a dream worth chasing. After thirty-two years here I know my goal. Nature Boy is the story of my young life; now I just have to figure out how the rest of it goes.

3. Pink Floyd | Shine On You Crazy Diamond
The night before Hurricane Katrina, the topic along the bar at Igor’s in New Orleans was to leave or not to leave? The air was stiff and heavy; so were the drinks. This song was playing on the jukebox. It was the first time I had ever heard it, synth keys sinking into the wind outside like a UFO was landing on the roof. This song is for my dad, and me, and everyone else trying to find their way out of themselves.

4. Gang Starr | The Planet
Listening to Guru as a teen was like trying to stare at the Sun. He told the simple truths. There's only one way to grow up. The darkest hour is just before dawn. And sometimes hours last decades.



5. Al Green | Simply Beautiful
Love after the fall. In the World I’m a man, but in my mind I’m a boy. I knew the rules, but I didn’t believe I could cause that kind of love, and pain. I didn’t know my power, I couldn’t fathom the punishment. I used to love this song for its mystery, but it’s no mystery now.

6. Donald Byrd | Cristo Redentor
The base chords are time: slow and steady. The horn is you: a constant melody even when you don’t know it. The piano is life's details, filling in the gaps. And every now and then they all come together and swoop over Jesus’ shoulders down a mountaintop in Brazil. My funeral song.

7. Miles Davis | Tasty Pudding
So perfect it’s almost hard to notice. Miles Davis lived the lives of ten men fearlessly and unapologetically and he is my hero.

8. Stevie Wonder | Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday
I always know what’s coming when this song begins to echo in my head. In the moment, we can handle anything. It’s the memories that can kill us. A eulogy for those of us who live in hindsight.

9. George Harrison | My Sweet Lord
A song better than anyone’s valiant attempt to play it. My Sweet Lord exists in perfection in our minds, under our breaths. A song I’ve known all my life and maybe longer.

10. Curtis Mayfield | Move On Up
Everyone has a million sad songs in them. Weakness comes naturally. Joyful music is the antidote, what we need instead of what we know. And it's harder than it sounds. 20 years after he released Move On Up, falling stage lights paralyzed Curtis Mayfield onstage. He died nine years later. And I only remember him smiling.