Nothing compares to you

I have this habit of pulling up YouTube videos, picking one song and then letting the algorithm pick the rest of what I’m going to listen to for the day. I’ve been stuck in Chris Cornell’s music for days now. Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, Audioslave. His voice was perfection. He could have sung the phonebook, and it would have been amazing. Such a shame the voices in his head couldn’t convince him to stay on this earth.

This morning the algorithm found this gem for me. One I’d never heard before.

Joe was a huge fan of Cornell’s. I listened to music all my life. Growing up it was Frank Sinatra and Neil Diamond blaring from my parent’s phonograph on a Saturday afternoon while mom cleaned house. In my high school years it was hair bands like Bon Jovi and Def Leppard that poured from my Sony Walkman. Of course, Don Henley has been singing to me since I can remember, and I will always be an Eagles fan. I took a break from music when my son was little, but started really listening again in the nineties when grunge made its debut. I remember watching Nirvana Unplugged on MTV and being mesmerized by Kurt Cobain’s tortured sound.

But listening to songs, and really hearing them were two completely different things. My Joe taught me how to really hear them. And if there were ever a singer that touched the soul of my late husband it was Chris Cornell. Here’s a few of our favorites.

Nothing compared to the love my husband had for music. It was his relaxation, his healing, his escape. It was our most favorite thing to do. Go to concerts, listen to music in the evenings in the backyard, on the beach, on the motorcycle. Wherever we were there was always music.

He taught me how to get lost in a song. It’s been more than seven hours and fifteen days since Joe’s love was taken away from me. I’m left with the music we loved together. It is now my relaxation, my healing, my escape.