A list of good tunes that offer tips for life.

Songs can make you feel energized and happy or melancholy and sad.  They can remind you of your best times in life or where you were when you got your first heartbreak.  There are songs for everything, for every mood and emotion, for every season and reason.  And then there are songs that are just jam-packed with good advice for living.  I jotted these titles in my notebook today while I waited parked in the driveway as Averi was snoozing in her car seat.

The Cat’s in the Cradle by Harry Chapin

You WILL reap what you sow, so – spend time with your kids.  As they say, “They’ll be picking your nursing home for you someday.”

And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon

Little boy blue and the man on the moon

When you comin’ home dad?

I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then son

You know we’ll have a good time then…

 

Maybe this song isn’t so much good advice as it is a great reminder about how not to waste your life.

Daughters by John Mayer

On behalf of every man looking out for every girl

You are the guide and the weight of her world

So fathers, be good to your daughters

Daughters will love like you do

Girls become lovers who turn into mothers

So mothers, be good to your daughters too

 

Totally true!  A girl’s choices in love are so shaped by her dad.  Even when she doesn’t realize how much, a dad’s approval and acceptance, his loving and wise words mean everything!

Teach Your Children Well by Crosby, Stills and Nash

Can you hear and do you care and

Cant you see we must be free to

Teach your children what you believe in.

Make a world that we can live in.

Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman by Bryan Adams

LINK TO VIDEO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeEFHJFUbEg

When you love a woman you tell her that she’s really wanted

When you love a woman you tell her that she’s the one

She needs somebody to tell her that it’s gonna last forever

So tell me have you ever really, really really ever loved a woman?

To really love a woman

Let her hold you –

‘Til you know how she needs to be touched

You’ve gotta breathe her – really taste her

Til you can feel her in your blood

And when you can see your unborn children in her eyes

You know you really love a woman

I love every lyric of this song (even though I couldn’t put them all here) and believe this song should be sung during Promise Keepers meetings.  Seriously.  They wouldn’t let me embed but there are a couple of great videos, the live version I have put the link to above, and the actual video in a Spanish Casino when the song was used for Johnny Depp’s movie, “Don Juan DiMarco.”  Click here, but be warned, it is probably a PG-13 rating http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq2KgzKETBw

I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womak

And this one may be some of the best advice of all, especially for me, a girl who was forbidden the dance, but always knew deep down the Creator loved to see her twirl and dance with joy.  I need this reminder constantly to break the unholy chains wrongly attributed to the Holy One.  {NOTE:  Please pardon LeAnn’s extraneous use of the newly acquired  mammilla, which frankly, in my humble-o, seem a little out of place for the sentiment and style of this video. }

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance

Never settle for the path of least resistance

Living might mean taking chances

But they’re worth taking

Lovin’ might be a mistake

But it’s worth making

I hope you still feel small
When you stand by the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Give the heavens above

More than just a passing glance

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

I hope you dance

What other songs have great advice for me to sing to myself?  List, please.

And please, brother Joe – do NOT say “Put Another Log on the Fire.”  Or else.

never take one breath for granted…