Hello Monday – hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and spent some quality time with your family! Since it is Monday, you know that Monday means music! For the month of November, our Spotlight Dancer is our friend and regular MMMM participant, Sandee from Comedy Plus! The theme selected for this week is: “Grateful.” Let’s get this Grateful party started!

Let’s start off with this Oscar nominated song that was recorded as part of the soundtrack for the romantic drama Beyond The Lights starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Nate Parker, Minnie Driver, Machine Gun Kelly and Danny Glover. This is a song that you sing with your whole body, taking note of how much you’ve learned from all your lows, and how much higher you can climb because of them – and being grateful.

Get ready for some goosebumps, here’s Rita Ora with “Grateful”:

Next up, a song about family – most of us are certainly grateful for family. In this song, the legendary disco group talks about the unbreakable bond that exists between sisters. It’s a song that will no doubt get you up and moving whenever you listen to it.

Get ready to dance, here’s Sister Sledge with “We Are Family”:

Next up is a song from this artist who’s always grateful – on this 2020 album, he’s happy to be “unapologetically positive.” The Grammy Award-winning singer is also happy that his irrepressibly upbeat album embraces reggae music from start to finish.

He is especially happy that the album’s closing selection, “[This song],” celebrates his unabashedly positive outlook, beginning with its opening line: “I’m so grateful, I’m so grateful.” Shortly before its conclusion, he declares: “I’m grateful to gratitude itself (Thank you!) / It helps me look for the good (Thank you!).”

Get ready to be grateful, here’s Jason Mraz with “Gratitude”:

Last, but certainly not least, is one of the most optimistic and uplifting songs ever conceived. The song is about appreciating the beauty of our surroundings. The artist really connected with it and delivered a very convincing vocal.

He married his wife Lucille in 1942 and soon after, the couple moved into the Corona neighborhood of Queens, New York, where they were still living when he recorded the song in 1967. He drew from life in that neighborhood as inspiration for his vocal. He said:

“I saw three generations come up on that block. They’re all with their children, grandchildren, they come back to see Uncle Satchmo and Aunt Lucille. That’s why I can say, ‘I hear babies cry, I watch them grow, they’ll learn much more then I’ll never know.’ And I can look at all them kids’s faces. And I got pictures of them when they was five, six and seven years old. So when they hand me this ‘Wonderful World,’ I didn’t look no further, that was it.”

Without further ado, here’s the amazing Louis Armstrong with “What A Wonderful World”:

That’s a wrap for this week – see you on the dance floor!

Now on to the particulars of Monday’s Music Move’s Me:   Photobucket

I have the supreme honor and privilege of being a co-host with the inimitable Xmas Dolly and our musical cohort, the awesome Cathy from Curious as a CAThy, and Alana of Ramblin’ with AM!

Want to join in the fun? It’s easy – just find a tune that rocks your boat, post it and link up – don’t forget to grab Xmas Dolly…er, um, I mean her button…over at her place here. Check out Xmas Dolly’s sidebar for the random themes we sport each week – and you can always ask for a specific theme of music you like, too. Check out the other music lovahs and let’s jam!

INTRODUCING OUR “SPOTLIGHT DANCER”:

Sandee from Comedy Plus



7 Comments

  1. Some wonderful selections today. Enjoyed them all, but “What a Wonderful World” may well be one of the best songs about gratitude and thankfulness ever written. “We are Family” is also a classic.

  2. You gotta love Louie Armstrong and “It’s A Wonderful World”. I liked reading about the inspiration behind the song. I hope you and your family had a blessed Thanksgiving, dear friend. Have a boogietastic week!

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