My Love Affair With Eric Benet...His Music, That Is!

(Sorry about the spacing. Blogger is being wonky again.)

Surrounded by everything I want

But nothing that I need

I was blinded by the absurdities

Losing all identity

Sometimes what you fear the most

Is what you need

To find that road

Right around that curve

A lesson learned

Now that I have the eyes to see

Sometimes I cried

But tears wouldn't fall

And sometimes I tried

To break those walls

And feel your love

But I came alive inside

When I finally found my way

(from Hurricane)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Some say that love's just a myth

It's a wonderful dream but it doesn't exist

But to look at you you're such a precious gift

That I know, I know

(from I Know)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It's so very hard to know
Which way to go
A lie can be the gospel truth
If eloquently told

Some people live their whole life
And they'll never see
The only way to find true happiness
Is to thine own self be
(from True to Myself)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I seem to blog in spurts these days and I am definitely having an "on" spurt lately. As I was driving home, I was listening Eric Benet's most recent CD, Hurricane and the song lyrics to the title track reminded me of my quotes posting from earlier today. I've posted those lyrics (along with some others) above, but now I'm going to ramble on a bit, well a lot actually LOL!

I remember exactly when my love affair with Eric Benet's music began. I was on a road trip with my dad and sister on December 30, 1997. We were headed from San Diego to the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Arizona because Syracuse (my sister's alma matter) was playing and my sister got free tickets from some football players she knew.

It was an insane trip because after the Fiesta Bowl on December 31st, we woke up before dawn on January 1, 1998 to drive to the Rose Bowl back in Pasadena. Michigan, my dad's alma matter, was playing and had a shot at the National Championship. I could go on about that, but I am getting far from my original point.

As you can see from my rambling above, we were on the road a lot in just a few days. My dad usually drives on road trips, but in the middle of the desert on the way to Tempe, he let my sister drive for a while. To keep herself entertained, she popped in a tape: Eric Benet's first album, True to Myself. That's when my love affair with Eric Benet's music began.

It took me a while after that first night, though, to realize it was love. One song stuck in my head that night and when I went back up to school and no longer had access to Nicole's tape, I broke down and bought the CD. It's still one of my favorite CDs.

When I was working, I bought CDs like crazy (including Eric Benet's second album, A Day in the Life, which is a bit more mainstream). Since leaving work to pursue my graduate degree in math, I can count on one hand the number of CDs I've bought. Mostly because I was on a tight budget, but partly because of the new downloading craze. I am usually more song oriented, so I pay per song to download most of the time these days. Well, actually I haven't paid to download in quite a while thanks to MP Free which gives me free music downloads (at BuyMusic.com) for signing up for email newsletters and such. But yet again, I digress!

Eric Benet's latest release, Hurricane, is one of the few CDs I've purchased in the last two years. It was well worth the money and the 5 year wait. Yes, it took FIVE YEARS to get from A Day in the Life to Hurricane. It released on my sister's birthday last year. Guess what she got for her birthday, LOL!

Anyway, if you haven't checked out Eric Benet, I urge you to do so. His music is not only catchy and full of soul, it contains some thought provoking lyrics as you may have noticed above. If you want to hear some of his music click here, here, and/or here. His official MySpace page is here, but isn't a music page, though you can see one of his videos there. I'm not too keen on the remixes, but the originals on those pages are great!