The Awakening

I desperately need to write something about 'The Awakening' myself. I've read so many reviews and even Melissa's own take on the CD, but I have never really talked about every song on the CD.

First gotta tell you that I love absolutely every album Melissa's ever gotten out, though it depends on my mood. 'Skin' and 'Lucky' tie on the top of my favorite album list, because I can't pick just one. Skin is telling a story, about the beginning of her break up, and how she goes through all the bads, through the healing, and then the glorious 'I Want To Be In Love'. And I swear 'Live and Alone' is the coolest concert ever. Well, of course it's because my idea of 'cool' is intimate and connected, not a concert with millions of audience and huge stage and all.

Lucky is a celebration - and dammit, I love celebrations! Especially if it's a celebration of love. When I'm happy and content I listen to Lucky. I love both albums for a clearly different reason, you see.

But 'The Awakening' is the 'deepest' of all Melissa's albums. She's one of the strongest and bravest people I've ever known - dead or alive. Best of all, a strong, brave person with a sense of humor, oh and of course with a killer musical skills. Anyway, let's go.

1. All There Is
The first time I heard this, it was kinda like one of 'Xena' soundtrack. Then the music is kinda taking me to outer space. Then Melissa's voice went in, "All there is, is atoms and space. Everything else is illusions." I always take this song as a kind of 'prayer', and like a mantra to take the audience to a state where the other songs are gonna be. It's a mesage about the truth, afterall, that too often we are worried about this and that, when those are just illusions.

2. California
This is a very Melissa-ish song. Right from the very first strum. I always think of it as a very hopeful song. "I took my family's burden, and strapped it to my chest. A few hundred bucks, and a kiss for luck, and I pointed my dreams west." My favorite part is when she sings, "I will find my love, I will know my peace, I will seek my truth, I am almost free." That was exactly the state where I was when I first listened to this song!

3. An Unexpected Rain
One of the most annoying thing about Melissa, and Bruce Springsteen too, for that matter, is that when I first hear their song, I might not like it, but the song kinda stuck in my head, and it plays over and over and over until I finally 'get' it, then I just have no choice but liking it in the end. This is a very bluesy song, slow and very fitting to be heard alone in a darkened room when it's raining outside. It's about a lover that got suicidal after Melissa left without saying goodbye. I know Melissa made her mistake, but I love her even more for admitting it out loud. How many people do that, huh? Especially in the celebrity world?

4. Message To Myself
One of the most loveable song ever written. Really, this song can easily be liked by anybody. The song is catchy and the message is clear. "I'm sending out a message to myself so that when I hear it on the radio, I will know that I am fine, I will know that I am loved." "It's funny how you find just what you seek, love is what you get when love is what you speak." "It's funny what you fear can make you weak, truth is what you get when truth is what you speak."

5. God Is In The People
The title says it all. God is in the people. The lyric is only about four short lines or so anyway.

6. Map of The Stars
I'm amazed if she doesn't get a lot of shits from fellow celebrities for this. It's about a girl wanting to be a star, then can't hold the pressure of being famous, and then the circle of life bringing us back to a girl in her hometown who sees her in a magazine and wants to be a star just like her. It's a very very positive message. Well, every song in this album holds a positive message, anyway.

7. Threesome
This is the most intriguing title when I first saw the track list. Oh my God! Threesome?! I thought she lives a very beautiful life now with her family and therefore there's no need to do this kind of stuff! After listening to the song, though, and of course after I read the story behind the song, I laugh out loud. "I don't wanna have a threesome, I don't wanna sleep with nobody else. I don't wanna be a swinger, I'd rather keep you all to myself." Aaah, she's who I think she is. I love this song, especially the part when she laughs! It's so cute.

8. All We Can Really Do
"All we can really do is love one another." That's all the lyric to the song. Clear as the day, isn't it?

9. I've Loved You Before
Damn, just when I think I couldn't love this woman more, she wrote another romantic song with a lyric that can make any romantic poet droll in envy. I love 'Sleep', I want to use 'When You Find The One' on my wedding day, I dropped tears to 'It Will Be Me', and this one leaves me speechless. Beautiful, beautiful words, absolutely love the lyrics, and the music is so soft and lazy... like being content in a relationship and wanting nothing more. And isn't that how you're suppossed to feel when you live your ever after with your soulmate?

10. A Simple Love
A short song like the other ones, but this one is my favorite. "It's a simple love that holds us together. It's a simple truth that sets us free. There's a place we're bound and they call if forever. It's a simple love between you and me." It's a simple song, but you can't deny the beauty of that song. Definitely will enter my list of songs to be played on my wedding day. Lol.

11. Heroes and Friends
"You can't take a trip if you don't first say goodbye, you can't find a star if you don't look up in the sky. You can't find the light if you don't know where the dark ends, and you can't change the heroes and friends." This song makes me think of Melissa herself, cause she's my hero, and is like an imaginary friend to me. She taught me so much about life yet she's not like a mentor to me. She's more like an inspiration, like a friend. She's my hero and friend. And with this song, she inspires me to just grab the bull by its horns, something I don't do much. Not because I'm scared, usually, just because I'm too lazy if it's not of a great importance.

12. The Kingdom of Heaven
It's one of the 'WHOA' song. Whoa, that she even DARES to sing it in public at all. Especially about the suicidal religious 'martyrs' (martyrs are usually for those who died for the greater good. These ones just died simply for hatred. Stupid people, I always say.). "He strapped all his desperate pain and his faith to his body, and blew them away." And the most beautiful statement of religion I've ever heard: "My God is love, my God is peace. My God loves you, my God loves me." As simple as that.

13. Open Your Mind
This song affected me more in the beginning than it affects me now. Now it only leaves me chanting its "Work eat sleep, work eat sleep, work eat sleep,... suffocating my delight." But I love the message, again: "How come there's so many people willing to suffer, so they get up and suffer everyday. They think we were put on this earth to suffer, and by God, they're gonna suffer until they suffer their lives away." "If my choice is despair or wonder on the line between truth and belief, do I just let the tide take me under or do I let the fascination come on and rain on over me?"

14. The Universe Listened
"There's something wrong, we don't start living until we almost die." I love the title of this song ever since I read it on the track list. This song is pretty much Melissa's biography, how she wants fame and fortune, "Make a deal, hearts to steal, they will know my name. I'll pay the price, any price, just give me the fame." She got fame and fortune. Then she asked for love, "A perfect song, my love is wrong, so I ate the dark. The hero closed, the story goes on, but I hate the part. I chose to fall, destroy it all, but I will rise again. I believe in love, please send me love, and I will try again." And she got love. Now she wants her message to be heard, and she got that, actually, remember 'The Incovenient Truth' and 'I Need To Wake Up'?

15. Imagine That
As much as I love the message in this song, this is the only song I can't like. Maybe just because of the melody. Huh.

16. What Happens Tomorrow
The first song I liked from this album, because I heard it on live earth, of course. "If not now, WHEN? If not today, then, what about tomorrow? What happens tomorrow?" Such a simple thing, AGAIN, yet holds all the importances possible. I have no idea how many people have shed tears when they hear this song, especially Americans, because it deals more with American's politic.

17. Not Tonight
I just HAVE to include this song. I love this song so much. It's PERFECT to be sung on stage, especially given the connection Melissa has with her fans. I can't help but laugh out loud when I first heard "So my sweet friends, speka true, be strong. Keep on believing we are right where we belong. You know I'd love to sing you, just one more song... (the audience applauded and cheered) ...but not tonight, not tonight (awwwwwwwwww!)" Damn, it's so cute!!! "Not tonight, I have to get back home. My baby's' waiting and it's been so long. The bowl is empty, the candies're all gone. So not tonight, I've gotta bring some sugar home."

I can't wait for her new Christmas Album this September 30th! I bet I'll love it. 'A New Thought For Christmas'... I really can't wait to see what she has next for 'Fearless'!!!