Just how many CD's I actually have is not a number I'm completely familiar with, because I am a pack rat... a hoarder of shiny baubles; items that looked good when I picked them up but many of which never got a proper listen. The number, I'm quite sure is between one and two thousand-- I'd be very surprised if it were higher.

I've been drawn to music since a time in childhood I couldn't possibly pin point... perhaps it was my father playing Sloop John B on his six-string, and that silly ditty he made up about sticks in the water floating down the river; a song he sang to us kids simply because it made us giggle to hear it. Whatever the reason, music has shaped my life. Everyone has a soundtrack, but mine is a compendium of aural flights and dreams.

My first records were Christmas gifts, McCartney and Wings' Wild Life [still my favorite, especially since no one but die-hard fans even know of this gem]. The other was a 45 Single of Tin Man, by America; a song I am still in love with if for no other reason than the line, "...but Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man, that he didn't--didn't already have..," and "So please, believe in me..." Since then I have been, first and foremost, a Beatles fan. Musically speaking, few acts have every been able to hold a candle to them. But I am obviously biased.

I noticed something unusual [or rather, I assume it's unusual]... that I am drawn to specific songs, especially those that are complete packages in terms of sound, lyric, and its ability to plug into the part of me that makes me tick... that part of anyone that causes ones spirit to resonate with external stimuli. When things resonate within, that is when they generally carry the most significance for you, be it the things' inherent genius or the beauty it carries within its very structure... the emotion it evoke within ones spirit.... it's that quality that attracts me to specific compositions.

For the past 20 years I've been compiling my own Cassettes and CD's with music that does this very thing... music that speaks to my spirit. From the beginning I've called these 'Albums': Soul Swizzle --Songs to Stir the Savage Soul, and I think [without bothering to get up and look] that I'm up to volume 16 or so.

But I've said all this in preface to the latest edition of Soul Swizzle, and one particular song... if not two. For hear is a song that gives me chills every time I hear it. It is a song that both makes me cringe for its imagery and lyrics, and sit in rapt wonder for its imagery and lyrics.

The song in question is Shawn Colvin's Another Plane Went Down. I won't post any lyrics here because, I'm embarrassed to say, they are not fit for print; being R Rated, if not NC17. Admitting this serves as no small source of embarrassment for me since as a Christian I know what she sings and the imagery she describes is not suitable within the hearing of a holy God who just so happens to reside within me. But I am drawn, not to the language and subject matter, but to how they gel with the music to conjure an ethereal experience of all five senses, if not more. And it is this songs ability to evoke such an emotional response in me that is what makes the song itself so dangerous. But it sits on my shelf nonetheless.

It is her lush, throaty voice that gives the song its greatest gift. The lyrics by themselves are both interesting and unremarkable in that the imagery provides a draw but the black scribbled lines on paper look clumsy and without any sense of poetic meter or rhythm, and yet it's not until everything is put together with her voice that the song seems to take on a soul.

I'm torn by my desire to throw out not only this CD but hundreds of others for the simple reason that little can be found in them worthy of eternity except, to my finite and very human mind, a soul worthy of a chance at redemption.

And therein lies the problem. For songs, however beautiful, ethereal, or simply 'catchy' will never be more than their combined melodies and lyrics-- they cannot choose to repent [like one-third of Heavens' host of angels], and therefore, like idols, are fit only for the fire. But how do I cast away something that is so obviously beautiful?

Because of my love of music I also took up the guitar. 32 years ago, it was. But only in these last 6 have I really cared about how skilled I was. Over the years I have taught myself to play Trumpet, Baritone, French Horn, Flute, Mandolin, and Guitar, and yet for all this I still feel restless about just what I'm to do with these skills, for though I most write my own music, nothing I've written compares to Shawn Colvin's song, nor to the other song to which I alluded; that being, Lindsey Buckingham's Street of Dreams.

All in all, it's hard surrendering strongholds. Especially ones that always leave me empty, for no amount of music on the shelf satisfies and I can simply imagine the amount of money I've spent on music that means both nothing... and everything... to me.

Why did God put music in my heart? Why is everything in my life bonded to melody and tone? What do I do with it besides allow it a place on the shelf? Do I really want to bury my talent?