1 post tagged “dan fogelberg”

RIP Dan Fogelberg

I will start this by saying I wish I could write as intelligently about music as my friend Daniel Kruse. I can't but I have a need to write about this particular artist today.

My musical preferences can only be described as somewhat eclectic or if you are feeling unkind,  bipolar. This is what happens when parents who have a bit of a hippie slant in their musical tastes raise a child who was a teenager during the eighties.

Depending on my mood I can listen to hours of  Scandinavian death metal bands, or hair bands, or arias sung by Croatian Opera singers.  I will give anything a listen. The only music that I can't deal with for long periods of time is jazz. Jazz confuses my soul. I think it's too much like what the inside of my heart would sound like. I think that's why I don't like it.

My current musical interests seemed to be bands like the Foo Fighters, Rilo Kiley, or The Weepies. I also keep an eye on all of those whiny ones in their twenties who are so very emo and drunk at a young age.  I like the sort of socially conscious bands with their rattley guitar sounds. I like the trance/dance/easy listening for middle aged hipsters stuff by Air.

 But before any of the faux poet emo boys that are the current rage in pop music there was the singer/song writer. This was a popular category of music in the 80's. You could slot Jackson Brown in there, as well, as Loggins and Messina but my favorite was always Dan Fogelberg. He looked like a poetry man from the romantic period and he was a great guitar player.

He died this weekend after a diagnosis of prostate cancer 3 years ago.  I was sad to hear this because he was fairly young and was intending on doing a tour after the successful treatment of his cancer but that didn't happen.

Fogelberg specialized in story songs much like Harry Chapin or Jim Croce before him. One of his biggest hits was "Same Old Lang Syne" which chronicled a woman bumping into an old guitar playing lover who has made the big time during the holiday season. The woman in the song chose the 'safe' boyfriend option because she didn't think the guitar playing guy was going to work with her lifestyle or her expectations at the time.

"She said she'd married her an architect
Who kept her warm and safe and dry
She would have liked to say she loved the man
But she didn't like to lie"

Many women I know can relate to those lines. It's a shame really. A beautiful sad song. Fogelberg seemed to write alot of sad songs about difficult relationships, women with no souls, and men with tender hearts even though he says he was a very happy person.  There are many songs that describe the loss of love and the hurt of being lost within your own soul.

I think his happiness shows up in his later work and one of his top 40 hits, "Longer'. Depending on how much Boone's Farm I have consumed I still think that is one of my top five favorite love songs of all time.
 
Longer

Longer than there've been fishes in the ocean
Higher than any bird ever flew
Longer than there've been stars up in the heavens
I've been in love with you
Stronger than any mountain cathedral
Truer than any tree ever grew
Deeper than any forest primeval
I am in love with you

I'll bring fire in the winters
You'll send showers in the springs
We'll fly through the falls and summers
With love on our wings

Through the years as the fire starts to mellow
Burning lines in the book of our lives
Though the binding cracks and the pages start to yellow
I'll be in love with you
I'll be in love with you

As I left my teens I sang this next song over and over because I had it on a cassette that I made for Sony Walkman which was the '80's equivalent of an ipod.  I think this song sort of distilled my feelings about relationships at the time.

 
Promises Made

Promises made and promises broken
Measures of our demise
Secrets of souls that rarely get spoken
Pleasure's a thin disguise
Dozens of ways and dozens of reasons
Shielding our hearts from pain
Riddles of romance
That distance may yet explain
Certain of nothing
So fearful of love
Nobody seems to show you enough
Over and over the scenes are replayed
And once again those promises made
Feeling forsaken, broken in two
How did this ever happen to you
Taken for granted, bruised and betrayed
Lonely survivors these promises made
Dozens of ways and dozens of reasons
Shielding our hearts from pain
Riddles of romance
That distance may yet explain
Certain of nothing
You're so damn fearful of love
Nobody seems to show you enough
Over and over the scenes are replayed
And once again those promises made
Those promises made

I find it strange that I can still relate to this song after all these years.  It just shows you how sometimes people don't really move on from their emotionally immature years. Or how they repeat emotional patterns throughout their lives.

Yeah....Dan Fogelberg, the music I haven't grown out of.  It I were a wise person I would say I grew into it.