Music inspiration: Magic by Ben Rector

Hey everyone, today I wanted to give a shout out to an album that has been on constant rotation for me as I write my series, Friends Like This. It’s a story about six best friends who grow up together and the misadventures and romantic entanglements that come with it. It’s full of nostalgia and friendship and love and this album connects so strongly with those emotions.

Because of that, Magic by Ben Rector has a tight hold on my heart.

I’m not someone who easily falls in love with musical artists and especially albums. I might love a song or two but it takes a lot to make me really love an album or artist. But boy do I love this album and it made me a fan of Ben as well.

Read on to find out where that love came from and why it means so much to me.

Back at the end of 2018 (? I think), I kept seeing a recommendation on YouTube for the song Old Friends by Ben Rector. I finally clicked on it and immediately fell in love. I’d recently turned thirty and this song and video screamed nostalgia. I’m a ’90’s kid and by nature I think we’re a nostalgic bunch, but I am particularly so. Naturally this song hit me right in the feels.

It became part of my regular rotation, showing up on multiple playlists of mine. It made me think of my childhood, my senior year of high school, while connecting with where I’m at now.

I’m listening to the album as I write this and the song just came on. And it made me smile like the cheesy idiot that I am. Okay, moving on.

Skip ahead two years and I’d started writing Friends Like This about a group of six best friends who grow up together from age five on. Naturally, Old Friends was a song that really resonated with me when I started writing it, so I was playing it nonstop. YouTube then recommended the second song off this album I Will Always Be Yours. I listened. And I realized it totally represented a major arc for the central love story in the book. Then I heard Love Like This (which has become one of my favorite songs ever) and it felt like that couple’s song.

I think I heard Kids next, which was also resonates with that series. And then another song off the album popped up and finally I sat down and listened to the whole thing. Not only did much of it connect with the series, it also resonated with me.

If you love any of those things, go listen. Right now. Seriously. This album is great. These songs are Magic (yeah I had to do it). Even my kids jam out to it.

If you haven’t yet, go check out this album and don’t forget to like and subscribe here so you don’t miss any of my random thoughts and tangents and more behind the scenes on music that inspires me as I write.

I hope you listen to this album if you haven’t before. If you do, let me know what you think of it. If you already have, let me know if it makes you feel all the things too!