Last May I began this feature. Today, I will finish it off by looking at 2020 through the present. As I got closer to the end, it became difficult for me to pick ten songs from each year. Proof of this will be evident from this post.
The songs that I featured each year had to connect with me in some way. It was attached to a core memory. Maybe it reminded me of one of my kids or a friend. Maybe it was a song from my years DJing. Maybe it was just a song that I liked a lot. The only real rule was that it had to be released in the year featured. With that in mind, let’s see how the last five years of music connects with me….
2020
There were no songs that really hit me in 2020. Thank you, Covid
2021
The world was still reeling from the pandemic. There was so much uncertainty. Many folks reconnected with their faith, as I did. I went back and watched the Bible classes I had taken. There I found comfort and the strength to get through things.
I want to say that a friend of mine asked if I had ever heard the song “My Jesus” before. I hadn’t and I found it online. It hit me immediately and I shared it with my wife. It is a powerful song, but even more powerful when you hear the story behind it.
Anne Wilson’s life changed in more ways than one when her older brother, Jacob, died in a car accident at 23. She told songfacts.com: “It was so tragic. He was my best friend. That’s actually how I started singing and how I got into music and that’s why I wrote the song ‘My Jesus.'”
After losing her brother, Wilson processed her emotions through journal entries. As she flicked through her entries before a writing session with Matthew West and Jeff Pardo, the young singer had an idea for a song. She told Billboard: “I walked through a really tough season of grief. I remember having this moment where I wanted to give up on life. When I looked back at my journals, I saw how God pulled me through. I also realized I never referred to God as anything else, except ‘My Jesus.'”
When she brought the title into the writing room, it turned out that the two others had that same exact title as an idea. None of the three had spoken about it, so it must have been “a total God thing.”
My Jesus
2022
No songs
2023
When I heard that they were releasing a new Beatles song, I hoped it would be better than Free As a Bird. When they released that for the Anthology stuff, the technology wasn’t as good as it was in 2023. Because of this, Lennon’s vocal sounds tinty.
Songfacts tells the story:
“Now and Then” was originally written and recorded by John Lennon around 1977 as a solo piano track. After his death in 1980, the unfinished demo floated in limbo until 1994 when his widow, Yoko Ono Lennon, gave the recording to the three surviving Beatles, along with Lennon’s demos for “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.”
Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr considered “Now and Then” as the third Beatles reunion single for their 1995–1996 retrospective project The Beatles Anthology, following “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.” After two days of recording, it was scrapped, largely because Harrison’s didn’t like it.
In 2022, using advanced technology and a curatorial touch, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr completed the track. The same AI restoration technology Peter Jackson used on the Beatles documentary Get Back was applied to Lennon’s vocal take.
“Back in 1995, after several days in the studio working on the track, George felt the technical issues with the demo were insurmountable and concluded that it was not possible to finish the track to a high enough standard,” Harrison’s widow, Olivia, said. “If he were here today, Dhani and I know he would have whole-heartedly joined Paul and Ringo in completing the recording of ‘Now And Then.'”
Besides Lennon’s John’s vocals, “Now And Then” includes electric and acoustic guitar recorded from the scrapped 1995 sessions by Harrison, a new drum part by Starr, and bass, guitar and piano from McCartney that matches Lennon’s original playing. McCartney added a slide guitar solo in Harrison’s style “as a tribute to George.”
“Now And Then” became the first AI-assisted song to earn a Grammy nomination, and the first to win, when it took the award for Best Rock Performance at the 2025 ceremony.
As a life long Beatles fan, I was impressed with just how good this one turned out.
Now and Then
2024
My wife will often listen to Pandora as she gets ready for work. The next song seemed to play on there at lot. It also seemed to play on her Sirius XM station when we went anywhere. It sort of had a catchy hook, but it wasn’t so good that I’d buy it.
One day I was driving with the kids in the back of the car and my daughter started singing “Excuse me, you look like you love me…” over and over again. It made me chuckle.
You Look Like You Love Me
2025
There has not been any songs from this year that connect with me. I tend to listen to audio books or songs from my iPod when I drive, so I don’t really get to hear anything new anyway. I’m ok with that.
Wow. Five years and only three songs. What a way to wrap up a feature, huh? Well, technically, I had wanted to wrap this up in May. So I have an idea on how to fill a couple Wednesdays and still keep it musical. Tune in next week to find out more….
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 