Songs of Solace

Image credit: Aretha Franklin: Kevin Mazur/Wireimage.com

''Little Bird,'' Annie Lennox
Walking city streets ''dark with rage and fear,'' Lennox envies a passing bird for its ability to fly away...then realizes it might not have taken flight without a nice, firm push out of the nest. Having been rudely shoved out of our comfort zone, we can relate.

''Love and Mercy,'' Brian Wilson
Wilson puts away childish things and despairs over the world's overwhelming violence and lonesomeness on behalf of everyone who just wasn't made for these times.

''Love Is the Answer,'' Todd Rundgren
It was some 20 years ago, in this heavenly slice of Philly-soul-gone-gospel, that Rundgren offered the answer. It might not have been until the atrocities of this year that we really understood the question.

''My Love Will Follow You,'' Buddy Miller
Is this the tender promise of a late lover to always watch over his beloved? God, haunting fickle humanity like a ghost? Or just a simple vow of faithfulness between separated sweethearts? Any way you look at it, it's the kind of commitment we all long to be pledged, now more than ever.

''Rhapsody in Blue,'' New York Philharmonic
Put this Gershwin masterpiece on as a promise of the time when we'll be able to stroll through a Manhattan as idealized as the one witnessed in Woody Allen's famous montage.

''This World Is Not My Home,'' The Monroe Brothers
Bill and Charlie Monroe offer perhaps the definitive take on this country-gospel standard in their 1936 recording, finding plenty of reason to celebrate in the idea that the world we know is just a way station.

''These Are Days,'' 10,000 Maniacs
Natalie Merchant's celebration of carpe diem is as outrageously joyful a pop song as any ever written. Is it premature, in these dark times, to listen to a song that says these are the good old days? Maybe, but her ode to joy strikes just the right triumphal tone.

''Treasure of the Broken Land,'' Mark Heard
The late singer-songwriter's dream of those who've gone on before him. Rarely has the tenuous wall between life and death inspired such a rousing rocker.

''Walk On,'' U2
''Beautiful Day'' is an especially powerful look through rose-colored glasses, but for pure, bittersweet inspiration, ''Walk On'' is just the balm for weary soles.

''Wonder of Birds,'' The Innocence
Mission Singer Karen Peris, who was ethereal before ethereal was in, makes the best case for flying away this side of, well, ''I'll Fly Away.'' If only we could.

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