#SHEA Ultimate S.O.S. Playlist, Volume 5 (Tracks 21-25)

This edition of the Playlist is dedicated to the back five episodes of S3… when “Autopsy,” “Fixation,” “Heartbreak,” “Hurt,” and “I Love You” had all us #Shea fans agonizing over Shaun and Lea’s future… and, at times, wondering if they still HAD a future. 

That run between February and March took us all through the gamut of emotions… and now that they’re “together” (at least as far as S4 goes), it’s a lot easier to deal with in retrospect than it was in real time! So let’s dig in to five more contributions…

SONG: “Up” by Olly Murs featuring Demi Lovato

Songwriters: Wayne Hector, Daniel Davidsen, Maegen Cottone, Peter Wallevik, Mich Hansen

Submitted by: Rose Amelie

Comments from Rose Amelie: “I discovered this when I put an Olly Murs playlist in YouTube… it could easily represent Shaun's feelings in the "Heartbreak" and "Hurt" episodes (the pain of a broken heart, and the hope that the things would work anyway):

Lyrics (Murs): 

Just breathe against the glass

Leave me some kind of sign

I know the hurt won't pass, yeah

Just tell me it's not the end of the line

Just tell me it's not the end of the line

“But it also represents Lea after her love confession:

Lyrics (Lovato): 

I never meant to break your heart

Now I won't let this plane go down

I never meant to make you cry

I'll do what it takes to make this fly

“And finally, both compromise to this:”

Lyrics (sung together):

Oh, you got to hold on

Hold on to what you're feeling

That feeling is the best thing

The best thing, alright

I'm going to place my bet on us

I know this love is heading

In the same direction

That's up

  

Comment from Me: Olly Murs is a U.K. artist who came to prominence via The X Factor. He’s apparently done well internationally but hasn’t made much headway in the U.S., which is why I’d never heard this 2014 duet with Lovato until now. (And that's a shame, because I really enjoy its Phillip Phillips-esque groove and think it would have fared well on radio over here!)

The official music video is worth a watch; I really like the concept and can almost picture Shaun and Lea in the respective male/female roles… not just because they’re breaking stuff, either!

If you’d rather just check out the lyrics… HEAR IT HERE

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SONG: “Yours to Hold” by Skillet

Songwriter: John L. Cooper

Submitted by: Amy Danko

Comments from Amy Danko: “Someone used this in a fan-made music video for Booth and Brennan from Bones that I saw at YouTube, which isn't there anymore… but I loved the song so much that I bought it. All these years later, I can't rightly say the entire song fits for #Shea, because they know each other's names… but it reminds me of them, and I really put it into heavy rotation in my music library after "F&F" aired last December. 

Knowing that Shaun had feelings for Lea, and, especially after "F&F," thinking to myself all those weeks that she ABSOLUTELY had feelings for him that went beyond just being best friends, I went around listening to, humming, and singing this song A LOT in January and February and March. And I still am… you can guess which parts of the song really remind me of how they feel about each other after reading the lyrics.”

Comments from Me: Though Skillet is a Christian Rock band, this track from their 2006 album Comatose appears (via the lyrics; I have no other info about it) that it could be secular in nature. As you’ll see in both “Yours to Hold” and the next song on the Playlist, interpretation is everything… once the words are out there, songs mean what they mean to people.

SAMPLE LYRICS

Every single day
I find it hard to say
I could be yours alone
You will see someday
That all along the way
I was yours to hold
I was yours to hold

I'm stretchin', but you're just out of reach
You should know
I'm ready when you're ready for me
And I'm waiting for the right time
For the day I catch your eye
To let you know
That I'm yours to hold

HEAR IT HERE

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SONG: “You Say” by Lauren Daigle

Songwriters: Jason Ingram, Paul Mabury, Lauren Daigle

Submitted by: Tammy Lewis

Comment from Tammy Lewis: “When I heard it, I thought of Lea trying to convince Shaun how important his love is to her.”

Comments from Me:

This song-- which, to me, benefitted greatly from a production job reminiscent of Adele's "Someone Like You"-- did for CCM artist Daigle what a song called "Find a Way" did for Amy Grant way back in 1985: found its way from Contemporary Christian radio to the mainstream... to a coveted space on Billboard's Top 40... to secular starmaker status. 

Back to what I said about the Skillet song... interpretation, interpretation, interpretation. Daigle herself describes "You Say" as "a song of my identity," which I think is generally considered to mean her identity through a higher power. But what if it's thought of in secular terms... in this case, a woman we've all recognized for her self-worth issues... and her struggle to see herself with the same loving eyes that Shaun has for her? 

I don't know if ALL the lyrics to "You Say" work for such a take, but neither do all the lyrics to many of our playlist choices. I think it's a most interesting suggestion! 

(By the way, THANKS Tammy for your suggestion... and remember you can always send more! That goes for all readers... here's the "call for submissions" post link!)

SAMPLE LYRICS

You say I am loved when I can't feel a thing
You say I am strong when I think I am weak
And You say I am held when I am falling short
And when I don't belong, oh You say I am Yours
And I believe, oh I believe
What You say of me
I believe

HEAR IT HERE

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SONG: “Fall On Me” by A Great Big World Featuring Christine Aguilera

Songwriters: Ian Axel and Chad King

Submitted by: Angelica, while giving a shoutout to YouTube #Shea contributor supreme Sheree-Lynn Blizzard. “Fall on Me” is the piece of music behind one of Blizzard’s most-watched #Shea videos to date. Check out THIS POST for more about her work!)

 

Comments from Angelica: “This fanvid “Fall on Me” (from Blizzard) gets its title from the featured song, which itself is a duet performed by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera. IMHO, the video does a great job of presenting Shaun and Lea's separate perspectives by synchronizing edits with the solo performances of each singer to effectively convey each side of their story.”

 

Comments from Me: A Great Big World and Aguilera combined forces previously on “Say Something,” which became a tremendous hit after performing it on NBC’s The Voice. “Fall on Me” was released earlier this year, but didn’t duplicate “Say Something”-level success (at least not in the U.S.) But it’s a beautiful contribution both to Blizzard’s catalog and our Playlist. 

SAMPLE LYRICS

Fly like a cannonball straight to my soul
Tear me to pieces and make me feel whole

I'm willing the fight for it
To feel something new
To know what it's like to be sharing a space with you

 

Fall on me
With open arms
Fall on me
From where you are
Fall on me

With all your light

With all your light

With all your light

Take away the visuals many of us are now used to seeing, and the lyrics still carry Shaun and Lea’s perspectives with grace. HEAR IT (simply as a lyric video) HERE 

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SONG: “All I Know” by Art Garfunkel

Songwriters: Jimmy Webb++

Submitted by: Me (Kelli)

Leave it to ME to contribute the oldest song (by far) in Volume 5… 😉

 

This song—a Billboard Top 10 hit in 1973—is one of several that stand out from my earliest days. This is probably because I was raised largely on my older siblings’ Simon and Garfunkel albums of the late 60s, and “All I Know” featured Garfunkel’s lovely, lilting tenor in a way similar to “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

 

I think the opening lines of “All I Know”—                                      

I bruise you, you bruise me—sprang to mind for me by the end of the “Heartbreak” episode, when it felt like both Shaun and Lea had done all the damage they could do to each other (and their relationship). I had to dig up the rest of the lyrics to see if the song made sense for them, and I really think they do—especially for this back arc of S3. Jimmy Webb wrote a wealth of recognizable hits in the 60s, most notably “Up, Up and Away,” “Wichita Lineman,” and “MacArthur Park”… but the lyric structure of “All I Know” is considerably simpler. Probably because the core is simple: I love you, and that’s All I Know.

 

Anyway, the bridge lyrics are what hooked me:

 

When the singer's gone
Let the song go on
It's a fine line between the darkness and the dawn

They say in the darkest night, there's a light beyond

 

The arrangement of Garfunkel’s version of the song is, as I said before, similar to “Troubled Water” in its swelling orchestration, climbing-ever-higher vocals, and cannon-like sounds in the final minute. But then, in a way very similar to Barry Manilow’s “Could It Be Magic” from the same era, “All I Know” calms all the way down to the simple, piano-only intro with which it started.  I like to think of the “swelling” part of the song as the final parts of the season finale… and the “calm” part as Shaun and Lea in much quieter, gentler moments that now lie ahead. 

As a bonus… I found a 2010 version of this song that was recorded as a duet between Jimmy Webb (the songwriter himself) and Linda Ronstadt. What’s especially poignant about this recording is that it was one of Ronstadt’s last—as you might know, Parkinson’s Disease has robbed her of her ability to sing, and I think she’d already announced her retirement by the time this was recorded (she’d stopped performing in 2009). Webb is apparently a long-time friend of hers, and he persuaded her into the studio once more with this lovely (and considerably sparser) version. 

GARFUNKEL'S LYRIC VIDEO IS HERE

WEBB/RONSTADT'S LYRIC VIDEO IS HERE