Tom's Only Life Mix

I originally put this mix together in June 2014 a couple of weeks after my brother Tom died. At the time I really wasn't thinking about specifically about Tom and the music he loved and this mix was really about him. But it turned out to be about me and my grieving for my brother. Later when I played this set of music I always thought of Tom because this all came out as part of my grieving process. It's happening again for my friend Tom who recently passed away.

The original It's Only Life mix was about an hour and a half long and at the time I put it together I described it as "pop songs of sad contemplation about life and death. Sometimes over the top and sometimes down in the depths."

Tom Loonan and I were music buddies. We listened to a lot of music together and went to lots of music clubs together for live performances. His wife wanted some jazz music playing in the background at his visitation afternoon and I was asked to put something together. I made a four hour jazz mix and called it Tom's Body and Soul Mix.

But this past week I was also listening to this mix here that I had made for my brother Tom 12 years ago at his sudden death. I could get it out of my head so I took off with it and expanded it into a 4 hour collection of "pop songs of sad contemplation about life and death. Sometimes over the top and sometimes down in the depths."

It starts out with the original hour and a half that I made with my brother in mind then I kept going in the same vein, heart and soul for another two and a half hours. Actually for about four hours and twenty minutes. It was hard to come to an end and I think it will continue with another mix I'll put together after the memorial service on Saturday. 

So I spent several days working on this new version of It's Only Life and edited it over and over again trying to get it right about how I was feeling. What songs worked and what ones didn't. It was trial and error but now I'm satisfied but of course this is only for me to judge, it's how I feel. The first thing I did when I felt it was completed was to change the name. Now the mix is Tom's Only Life mix.

I've added it to my YouTube Music collection of mixes. Spotify too. 

Tom's Only Life - A Reflections Mix

1. It's Only Life - The Shins
2. Tiger Mountain Peasant Song - Fleet Foxes
3. Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear
4. In This World - Moby
5. Lost Cause - Beck
6. No Surprises - Radiohead
7. In My Place - Coldplay
8. Turn - Travis
9. Bitter Sweet Symphony - The Verve
10. Lightning Crashes - Live
11. Fade Into You - Mazzy Star
12. Everybody Hurts - R.E.M.
13. Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen
14. Building A Mystery - Sarah McLachlan
15. With Or Without You - U2
16. No Distance Left To Run - Blur
17. Do You Realize?? - The Flaming Lips
18. Trying To Get To Heaven - Bob Dylan
19. Keep Me In Your Heart - Warren Zevon
20. Hurt - Johnny Cash
21. Only Time - Enya
22. A Voice At The End Of The Line - M. Ward
23. Revelator - Gillian Welch
24. The Greatest - Cat Power
25. The Only Way - Jim Noir
26. Don't You Know - The Sleepy Jackson
27. The Funeral - Band of Horses
28. Crown of Love - Arcade Fire
29. Blonde on Blonde - Nada Surf
30. New Slang - The Shins
31. Waltz #2 - Elliott Smith
32. Five String Serenade - Mazzy Star
33. Night Swimming - R.E.M.
34. Tower of Song - Leonard Cohen
35. Don't Give Up - Peter Gabriel
36. Don't Dream It's Over - Crowded House
37. From a Distance - Nanci Griffith
38. The Nightingale - Julee Cruise
39. Ode To My Family - The Cranberries
40. Sonnet - The Verve
41. Cannonball - Damien Rice
42. Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
43. For Emma - Bon Iver
44. Cloudy Shoes - Damien Jurado
45. So Well - Dawes
46. Morning - Beck
47. Cold Coffee - Assembly Of Dust
48. Sing - Travis
49. Million Dollar Bill - Middle Brother
50. Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings - Father John Misty
51. These Days - Glen Campbell
52. Falling Apart - Brian Wilson & Emile Haynie
53. Take Me To Church - Hozier
54. Epic - Calexico
55. Dust to Dust - The Civil Wars
56. Thinking 'bout You - Yusuf
57. He Doesn't Know Why - Fleet Foxes
58. The Way That He Sings - My Morning Jacket
59. Lonesome Tears - Beck
60. Exit Music (For a Film) - Radiohead