8. Modern Folk Music

Maybe I should call this category "Female Singer-Songwriters". There's something beautiful about a woman who's lost a mother, or didn't have a real mother, for whatever reason. A lot of folk singers have quite a bit of loss in their lives. The soul cries out in this unique, raw way. Music is surely one of the best ways to express it.

I found over the summer that I truly love all folk music. There was an interview on Democracy Now with Billy Bragg this past summer, and I'd been thinking for a long time that I was a non-punk kind of girl, but I loved him. He sang songs about protests and coal mines. He spoke truth. Folk is truth: beautiful, honest, bloody truth. Love it.

1. Lori McKenna-There aren't enough good things to say about this amazing artist: vulnerable, honest, deep, suffering, great voice, prolific...For a whole day, I listened to this song on repeat (I pretty much can't listen to it anymore, not because I hate it now, but because it connects with a place in my heart that I just don't want to go). She speaks to me, not because I'm a mother or a wife, but because she is real. Love her.

2. Patty Griffin-I am not in love with her newest album, so she's taken a bit of a backseat lately. My friend has her live album, "A Kiss in Time" and every time I drove her car, I'd listen to Long Ride Home over and again, singing at the top of my lungs (Nothing is better than the version on that album). I am not a fabulous singer, but I wanted to be fabulous for that song.

3. Cry, Cry, Cry-A single album collaboration between Dar Williams, Lucy Kaplansky, and Richard Shindell. A good friend made a tape for me in high school, and it was on repeat in my car. I think Billy Joel finished off the second side of the tape :) It's synergy, baby, synergy. Those three, all together, are magical. I like them all individually (Iowa and After All by Dar Williams are two of my favorites), but the sum is greater than the parts.