Anniversaries can be good for the most part but not for everyone. Yet the ten year anniversary of the release of Rob Thomas's album Cradle Song brought back many memories for me; as I'm sure it did for many others. I don't know; I write about things, his songs and what they mean to me and then I like how I always always come across interviews and such, where Rob talks about the meaning behind them and what prompted him to write them. This album was no exception.
Going back to what I wrote before in an earlier piece about some of the song meanings, it was good to know that Fire on the Mountain was inspired by a fave book he enjoyed by Dave Eggers What Is the What? The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (2006) based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese child refugee who immigrated to the United States under the Lost Boys of Sudan Programme and ended up living in Atlanta.
There are plenty of songs on this album that have had an impact on me over the past decade. As well as in the way Rob spoke of how Twitter came about back then and he didn't know what to do with it. Same. Especially since I didn't grow up with social media around either; back when life was so simple without the added complications of technological imprints!
Her Diamonds, Real World '09, and Fire on the Mountain (mentioned in my previous piece.) Mockingbird is again almost a lullaby style of song and lyrics especially with the mockingbird not singing and I love that catchy theme. Snowblind; Gasoline, among some of my faves. Natural giving an impression of something much more haunting and possessing our lives.
He said that Cradle Song was from the German for 'lullaby' and he wasn't aware of that. When I heard the title it made me think of the William Blake poem Cradle Song - very poignant considering William lost two of his six siblings.
Looking back to 2009 is a good vantage point to regress back into the past from 2019. Knowing what was to come and happened. Thinking how you could have and would have wanted to do things differently. How inspiring to listen to heroic lyrics that have gotten better with age, found new meanings for me and I'm sure for others. But also looking backwards/forwards to how the wonderful songs don't stop coming and having so much more to look forward to, from then to now and onwards into the future and another ten years.
Nostalgia through Rob's music is a gloriously, sublime feeling to relive!
The other piece I mentioned:
https://mila255.blogspot.com/2019/05/rob-thomas-chip-tooth-smile-reflection.html
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