The train to the land of hope and dreams

I announced yesterday a two-week experiment in writing that begins Monday, a two-week journey down the corridors of what memory I have left, bits and pieces of history and imagination. Music will be our train but not our driver.

As the Boss wrote about our trip(and I could do all this with just his songs, by the way and if you don't know who the Boss is, well, you might not get any of this):
Grab your ticket and your suitcase, thunder's rolling down this track
Well, you don't know where you're going now, but you know you won't be back
I'm going to use interspersed music to rattle cages, dislodge memories, find where the Spirit is taking me. It's all a countdown to a 60th birthday on July 27. This is a one and done, by the way, for your readers who aren't seeing this for the first time. I'll return to a daily religion blog soon thereafter unless my head explodes.

The Boss says:
Well, darling, if you're weary, lay your head upon my chest
We'll take what we can carry, yeah, and we'll leave the rest
Well, big wheels roll through the fields where sunlight streams
Meet me in a land of hope and dreams

I began with 28 favorite tunes (and found a couple more since, one of which made the final cut).
They were: No surrender, Bruce Springsteen; Saving the world, Clay Crosse; Hotel California, Eagles; Can't take the pain, Third Day; Much Too Young to Feel this Damn Old, Garth Brooks;

It isn't gonna be that way, Steve Forbett; Papa was a rolling stone, the Temptations; This ain't my home/Too old now, Jason Turner; Amy, Pure Prairie League; Operator, Jim Croce; Fourth of July, Dave Alvin; Forever, Chris Tomlin; Friends, Michael W. Smith; If I can dream, Elvis; The weight, the Band; Jack and Diane, John Mellancamp; Brown eyed girl, Van Morrison; Looking out my back door, Creedence; Have you ever seen the rain, Creedence; Your Song, Elton John; I can't help falling in love with you, Elvis; Everything I own, Bread; Sweet glow of mercy, Gary Chapman; Daydream believer, Monkeys; Elijah, Rich Mullins; Born to run/Thunder road/the river Bruce Springsteen; Maggie May, Rod Steward; And I still haven't found what I'm looking for, U2.

The final cut is in. Twenty songs that will help us take that long trip down into the land of hope and dreams that Springsteen wrote about on Wrecking Ball album.

Yes, this train carries saints and sinners
This train carries losers and winners
This train carries whores and gamblers
This train carries lost souls
I said, this train carries broken-hearted
This train, thieves and sweet souls departed
This train carries fools and kings thrown
This train, all aboard
I said, now this train, dreams will not be thwarted
This train, faith will be rewarded
This train, the steel wheels singing
This train, bells of freedom ringing

The rules are simple: I'll write each day with a couple of my favorite tunes as the locomotive. These are my 20 favorite, not the 20 best, not the 20 most famous, not the 20 of anyone's. They meant something at the time I heard them. Now, I won't be using them chronologically, but rather tying them to the theme or topic of the day. And all this will have a spiritual connection.

There. Those are the rules. Unless they change.

Again, this won't be a biography or at least most won't be. We'll talk topics like racism, the desire to be wanted, loneliness, depression, joy, salvation, saints and sinners and all the losers and winners this poor rambling ragamuffin has come across in the wanderings in the deserts of Nevada and the lush gardens of USA Today and even the distant past of a city best known for the worst of all.

Jump on board.
People get ready, there's a train a comin. Don't need no ticket, you just get on board.