Songs of Hope

We'll be back to our regularly scheduled Musical Musings posts tomorrow, but for today, I'm trying something I've never tried before. In standard conversation, when I drone on about songs inspiring hope and how they can be a powerful tool to help us through our darkest moments, I just get blank stares, or insincere nods of agreement to get me to shut up.

Around musicians, however, this is entirely different, and tends to lead to deep conversations that can go on for hours. But musicians aren't the only ones touched by music as we all know, so this post is for everyone. Someone without a musical background might not know the details of the progression or what scale the song is written in to help convey the intended feeling, but everyone knows when they just FEEL something.

This is a list of songs (and you'll see certain artists repeated multiple times) that have instilled hope in me over the years. Some of these are new, some are old, but all of them are very special to me, and I hope you'll give them a chance to see if they're special to you. And since this is such a long list, I'll only be including links to the videos, rather than posting the videos themselves. Oh, and since this is an exhaustive list, I'm going to put a star by a few tracks by each artist that are my personal favorites (or in the case of Golden, saved my life) so you don't have to sit through all of these (even though you totally should.)

Here we go....



Switchfoot
Where the Light Shines Through *
Hope is the Anthem
Afterlife
Dark Horses
Vice Verses *
We Are One Tonight
Love Alone is Worth the Fight *
C'mon C'mon
Golden *
Let Your Love Be Strong
Hello Hurricane *
The World You Want *
Thrive

U2
Walk On
The Hands That Built America *
Pride (In The Name of Love)
The Unforgettable Fire
Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own *
Sleep Like a Baby Tonight
Every Breaking Wave *
Like a Song.... ****


Goo Goo Dolls
Rebel Beat
Better Days *
I'm Still Here (This is Jon Rzeznik without the band.)

Ed Sheeran
What Do I Know?


Matisyahu
One Day


Jon Foreman
The Moon is a Magnet
Love Isn't Made
God Badge *

Tears For Fears
Famous Last Words *
Sowing the Seeds of Love
Power *
The Working Hour *
Secret World
Ladybird

Louis Armstrong
What a Wonderful World

Bob Marley
No Woman, No Cry *
Three Little Birds