Like so many others, that Grey’s Anatomy season finale is still with me. What an incredible way to end the season. As much as the events that happened (or, depending on how you think about it, didn’t happen) in those last eight minutes were powerful enough, the soundtrack really went perfectly with the emotion. Independent artist Ingrid Michaelson’s song that accompanied the show’s epilogue is such a beautiful and powerful song.
Apart from Grey’s, the song is incredible. Amidst all of the really bad music that we have surfacing to the top of radio station’s commercialized playlists these days, it’s great to see independent artists like Ingrid and Regina Spektor making the kind of unique music that we’re hearing more and more of. It’s refreshing and hopefully a trend that others will follow (or hopefully not follow. Make your own music.)
When I think of the lyrics of this song, it almost makes me feel the same way I felt after watching An Inconvenient Truth. You reflect on all that you could be doing to change the world. You pass homeless people and wonder if a dollar was really all that you could have done. You watch the news and wonder how you could have become so complacent — the news of soldiers dying in the war barely gets you to look up from the magazine anymore. You reflect on all that you could be doing. And then you realize that you’re going overboard a bit. You’ll change the world yet….you just need to wait until the right moment. Your moment. And until then, “all you can do is keep breathing.”
(Above is a live version of the song. You can hear a clean version over at her myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/ingridmichaelson). Sadly, she can’t really capitalize from the success of the song now — she has to wait until the corporate execs at ABC say it’s time to release the song — in September. (Really smart business, folks.) Anyhow, let’s be sure to support her when the song releases then. Don’t forget — she’s an independent artist.
Keep Breathing by Ingrid Michaelson
The storm is coming,
But i don’t mind.
People are dying,I close my blinds.
All that I know is I’m breathing…now.I want to change the world,
Instead, I sleep.
I want to believeIn more than you and me.
But all that I know is I’m…breathing
All I can do is keep…breathing.
All we can do is keep breathing…now.
All that I know is I’m breathing,
All I can do is keep breathing,
All we can do is keep breathing……
