Always Leave the Ground

The music that I buy and listen to regularly during a period of time is what I like to call my soundtrack for the season. My soundtrack for this fall has consisted of some new material by some old favorites as well as a couple of new bands I got into. If any album defined my semester here it would probably be Copeland's 2006 album Eat, Sleep, Repeat. Copeland only made five albums before breaking up in 2010, and this was the final one of theirs that I purchased. I liked it so much that I listened to it and pretty much nothing else for nearly a month after I bought it.
My favorite song I got while over here would probably be Relient K's cover of Third Eye Blind's "Motorcycle Drive By." It's a song that tells a story, which happens to be the kind of songs I'm usually drawn to the most. And part of that story takes place here in England. It's a fun listen and I enjoyed listening to it 35 times this semester (according to my track plays on iTunes).
One day in late October, I decided to play that song before taking a nap. My windows were wide open and the sun was in my eyes (which happens to be a line in the song). I fell asleep with "Motorcycle Drive By" in my head, and when I woke up two hours later to the sunset peacefully crashing through the windows, it was still in my head. So does that mean it was the soundtrack to my dreams that day?
I bought my first Paramore album in September (Riot!). It'll probably be my last, but it was still a solid CD. Coldplay wrote a song for the Catching Fire soundtrack called "Atlas" that I really enjoyed. I also bought As Cities Burn's third album and a few songs from The Killers and Needtobreathe.
My favorite band released their Fading West EP in preparation for their full-length documentary that came out two days ago! Both the documentary and the EP were wonderful, and I can't wait for their full album to come out next month. They were on tour this fall for a couple months, but sadly it was only a US tour. I was in Europe for its entireity, while a few of my friends got to see them in concert. It's a bummer that I missed out on it, but there will be other concerts. There will never be another semester abroad (so it seems).
And then the final album I bought in England this semester was by a band called This Day & Age. I had never heard of them before this year, but I thought their first album was fantastic!
I think it's cool how we associate certain songs with specific times in our lives. For example, every time I hear Switchfoot's "This is Home," I think of my sixteenth birthday. I had just gotten my driver's license and was driving by myself for the first time, and that song by my favorite band came on the radio. "Oh yeah," I remember thinking, "Behind the wheel, this is home." When I told Tutor George that story, he said God has a sense of humor.
I wonder, years down the road, when I hear songs like "When You Thought You'd Never Stand Out," "Long Walk Home," or "Motorcycle Drive By," if I'll think of this semester abroad and all the gifts it gave to me. Only time will tell. I just hope that in the future, if I get fantastic opportunities like this, that I'll always leave the ground.
My next blog post will be my last one for this adventure. In it, I'll be addressing the question, "Is this place worth coming back to?" Thank you all for reading, and I hope every one of you has a blessed Advent and Christmas.