SONG OF THE DAY

“For Good” from the musi­cal Wicked, Decca Broad­way, 2003. Writ­ten by Stephen Schwartz. Per­formed by Idina Men­zel and Kristin Chenoweth on the orig­i­nal broad­way cast recording.

A TRIBUTE

Today was the funeral of an amaz­ing woman, Kelly Goff, a smart and sassy eigh­teen year old that I was blessed to have in my life through her friend­ship with my sis­ter, Caitlin. Caitlin and Kelly met doing the same the­atre group I was a part of in high school, and am an active alumni mem­ber of today. In fact, when they were both in fifth grade, unbe­knownst to them, they sat in the same audi­ence and watched my senior year per­for­mance of Hat­tie in “Kiss Me, Kate”. I prob­a­bly mes­mer­ized them ;). The show made Kelly want to do the­atre, and Caitlin fol­low in her older sib­lings foot­steps, and I’m not sure that in the time they had together in high school, they ever real­ized that they shared that moment years ago as kids. And the­atre they did. Noth­ing ever stopped Kelly–her mus­cu­lar dys­tro­phy and sco­l­io­sis were her body but never her spirit or mind. She was so fun and funny to work with dur­ing those shows, as my sis­ter, mother and I found out in the best of ways dur­ing those shows we all worked on together.

Kelly and Caitlin’s friend­ship was based on two things: the unde­ni­able wit and sharp sense of humor shared by both and pointed at many, and their deep, entrenched love of music and shar­ing music with oth­ers. Last year, they went to a Killers con­cert together, and had a hilar­i­ous run­ning joke about going all in on the whole polygamy husband-sharing thing with the hot mor­mon lead singer, Bran­don Flow­ers (he’s the pic­ture for this post)

Today, I present to you the playlist Caitlin made this past week in honor of Kelly. Songs they bonded over and loved together, songs that will always remind Caitlin of her amaz­ing friend, Kelly. I start the playlist with two ver­sions of “For Good” from the musi­cal Wicked. It was Kelly’s favorite song from a musi­cal she was crazy about, and high school choir mem­bers per­formed it at both her funeral and her vigil. The lyrics seem like they were writ­ten for this week­end and for Kelly. Even if you never met her, I hope you can learn from the life of a woman who was never embar­rassed to ask for help, never showed hes­i­ta­tion for who she was or what she looked like, and never let any­one tell her she couldn’t do something—whether it was a class trip to NYC with many sub­way rides or going to col­lege in Florida or being pro­ducer of her high school musi­cal or going to dances or being a stu­dent leader or any­thing. Last night after the funeral, I said that Kelly was prob­a­bly danc­ing in heaven as we speak, but Caitlin and her friends disagreed—she was bungee jump­ing, for sure.

1. For Good — from the musi­cal Wicked
2. Human — The Killers
3. Sea­sons of Love — from the musi­cal Rent
4. I’ll Cover You (Reprise) — from the musi­cal Rent
5. Black­bird — The Beatles
6. Andy, You’re A Star — The Killers
7. If I Ever Leave This World Alive — Flog­ging Molly
8. Lost — Coldplay
9. You’ll Be In My Heart — Phil Collins
10. I Will Fol­low You Into The Dark — Death Cab For Cutie
11. See You Soon — Coldplay
12. Other Way — Trevor Hall
13. Won­der­wall — Oasis
14. Stop Cry­ing Your Heart Out — Oasis
15. Open Your Eyes — Snow Patrol

VIDEOS OF THE DAY

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