let the sun beat down upon my face with stars to fill my dream

Cate from Retro Life Style has tagged me to reveal seven songs I've been listening to a lot lately. Obviously, I'm 100% down for this type of tag. If my overenthusiastic bubbling about a song piques your interest, I've provided a link for where you can go hear it.

Alicia Keys - Teenaged Love Affair

I've always been an Alicia Keys fan and she rarely disappoints me. I love her voice, and I think the longing in her voice when she sings "It's a matter of extreme importance" is just perfect for the song.

Outkast - Prototype

For years, I actually didn't really like this song at all until, when researching for a certain blog post, I found the video. Simply put, it was one of the best videos I'd ever seen, and I proceeded to fall madly in love with the song. Now I listen to this song daily and worship at the altar of its genius. All hail my future husband, Andre 3000.

Fleetwood Mac - Before the Beginning
I talk about Nicola so much on this blog that you probably think she's the voice inside my head or something. You're be 90% right. Nicola is the source of most of what it is good in my life and one of the many examples of that is this song. She introduced me to it and since then, I like to curl up and enjoy it's beauty. I have to stress that this is not the Fleetwood Mac of Stevie Nicks fame, and this song doesn't sound like "Don't Stop". This is the early, British, bluesy Fleetwood Mac, which I prefer.

Black Sabbath - War Pigs
I'm not surprised if you're surprised about this choice. Frankly, I'm surprised. I've never thought of Black Sabbath as a group I would like, but this is the second song of theirs that I've heard ("Planet Caravan" being the first) and the second that I've really liked.

Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)
Marvin Gaye...where do I even begin? His music never fails to make me feel great and his voice is just so soothing. Lately, I've been craving this song to no end.

Parliament - (You're a Fish and I'm a) Water Sign

I found myself in the record store with Black Mountain's In the Future in hand, about to buy it. "Hmm," I thought to myself, "maybe I should just check the Parliament section to see if they've gotten anything new in..." Lo and behold, they'd just had a shipment of a number of Parliament albums. I flipped through the albums, nearly crying with joy over the excitement of the covers. But I was already holding In the Future, I really should just stick with that. Then, I noticed that one of the albums had a song called "(You're a Fish and I'm a) Water Sign". Bye, bye, Black Mountain.
Nobody else seems to think this title is as great as I do. I feel a spiritual connection to it on a couple levels: the astrology reference was fantastic for someone as obsessed with astrology as I am; I actually am a water sign (and so is George Clinton...Cancers, hollaaaa!), and the wit of it just killed me. I was so pleased that the song itself, a stirring piece about the difficulties of being in love with a mermaid (and one of Parliament's few ballads!) lived up to the title.

Led Zeppelin - Kashmir

I've always liked the Robert Plant quote "'Stairway to Heaven' isn't the definitive Zeppelin song...'Kashmir' is!" (I might be paraphrasing) because I hate that "Stairway" often is the song most associated with Led Zeppelin. "Kashmir" captures their dark mystique. It's also on one of the few Zeppelin albums I don't own (yet!) so it teases me with the fact that I really only listen to it at Nicola's. You've heard it, but if you want to revisit, here you go.

If you're in the mood for posting your seven songs du jour, then I declare "Go for it." If not, hey, that's cool, too.