My Top 10 Delta Songs: Album Tracks

Before we begin, a note- even though this is a list of my favourite tracks that aren't singles on Delta's albums, it's actually a list of my Top 10 tracks on her first three albums. My official excuse is that she could still release another single from her last album (fingers crossed), but also because otherwise this list would be 9 tracks from Child of the Universe and the number 1 track from this list that follows.

I just love so many songs on COTU, so I will list my favourites (in order) from that album at the end of this post. If you want to hear the songs, follow the links! So here are my top 10 tracks across Innocent Eyes, Mistaken Identity and Delta:

Number 10: God Laughs

Off Delta's third album in 2007, Delta, this is the song Delta wrote about her parent's divorce. Now, my parents have been married for 28 years this year, so clearly the subject matter is not why I relate to the song.  I love this song for a few select lyrics in the bridge of the song, and the chorus:

And we're so stupid if we think we can control
All the dark matter at the centre of this black hole
It's gonna pull us under if we don't let go

We're all walking on quicksand
When we're busy makin' our plans, God laughs
We're all walking on quicksand
When we think that we understand, God laughs

 As someone who freaks out most about the things I can't control, I relate. And it's true that so often life turns out so differently than we plan, and I think God must laugh when we think we have everything under control and planned. I also love that it's about a very personal, sad subject, but the song itself is so simple and more about the sentiment of the chorus than the subject of the divorce.

Number 9: A Year Ago Today
I've always loved this song, but no more so in the past year since my grandfather died. Again, it's so simple.
"You went away a year ago today." This song doesn't have to be about losing someone to death, it could be about losing anyone just in terms of a break up or the end of a friendship. Whenever you lose someone, you try and make sense of it. And no matter how much it hurts, life goes on. As the lyrics say, we get another year older, a little bit stronger, a little bit wiser.
In the past year, I've come to relate to this song on so many more levels. Now this song will always remind me of my Grandad, because Delta says it best:

"Love will never end/ And even though we're so far apart, you are forever in my heart" 

Number 8: Butterfly
Ah, Butterfly. The music just sounds like a butterfly... and I realise that makes no sense, but I promise it does if you listen to the song! In away, if you stripped it down, this song could almost be a lullaby. It can work and be meaningful on so many levels, for so many different relationships. Delta used this song to open her first national tour, The Visualise Tour and it's very theatrical and magical and beautiful. It's just a really sweet song, and I love it.

 Number 7: Extraordinary Day
This is the song Delta wrote about the day she was diagnosed with cancer (Hodgkin's disease) when she was 18. These are my favourite lyrics in the song:

"I know I can't change fate of that July the 8th,

 and it was never the same. 

I know, this stage is frightening

but it's oh so enlightening, is this how karma goes?

Who would have thought when chance came calling, 

that this would be my defining story? 

And who could guessed on my life's journey, 

I could find my way through that extraordinary day."

Who hasn't had a day that they will always remember because some life defining and/or life changing moment happened? I have many. Whether it's good or bad, I know the feeling she is talking about in this song.
(Also, side note: I've almost used this as a title for a fanfiction twice. It was almost the title of Out of the Blue). 

Number 6: Possessionless
Yep, I did use this song for a Wicked fanfiction (just a one shot). Because the first time I heard it after seeing the show, it fit Elphaba perfectly in my mind.
This song, I think, surprised a lot of people when they first heard it, because Delta's lyrics weren't usually so... intimate.

"All I've got is my body and it's naked for you. All I've got is this heart that I'm willing to lose."

She's talking about making yourself vulnerable, and not being defined by anything or anyone. She actually wrote it when she was going through the cancer battle, after she'd lost her hair and all that stuff. But it didn't appear until her third album. And it does feel like a very intimate song.

Number 5: The Analyst
Wow, I relate to this song. Any song that I relate to is always going to be really close to me, and on her first two albums, Delta had so many where it felt like she had been inside my head as she wrote them. The Analyst.

  "Prepare yourself to meet, a girl who doesn't sleep. Dividing every question 'til the question is complete."

"She's travelling back in time, questioning every line that someone says."

"Trying to make sense of her life."

Now, when Mistaken Identity came out in 2004, I was 14 and was just beginning to emerge from years of bullying. Then (well, I still do it now at times actually), my self esteem was so shot that I was never actually confident that my friends actually liked me. I'd mentally repeat everything my friends had ever said to me, thinking about what they had said, how they had said it and what it might mean.
 So, yeah, I related to this song in a big way.

Number 4: Fragile
Another song I really related to on Mistaken Identity. And Delta mostly always has a song on an album that is mostly just her and a piano, and Fragile is it for this. It's the type of song that can be stripped back acoustically or could be built up and would be incredibly powerful both ways.
After so many years of being bullied and having no self-esteem or friends, this song spoke a lot to me.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm alone,
sometimes I feel like I'm not that strong.
Sometimes I feel so frail, so small,
sometimes I feel vulnerable,
sometimes I feel a little fragile."

You know how you have days when you just feel like crying for no reason at all? This is the song that gets played a lot on those days.

Number 3: In My Own Time
This song has greater meaning to me as the years go on, and honestly, I could just post the entire lyrics to this  song and that would sum everything up. But I find I'm listening and relating to this song a lot more the older I get, especially when people have all these expectations of you and what you should have been doing/achieving in your life by now.  These lines in particularly stand out for me:

"In my own time I'll take a chance,In my own time, I'll find romance. In my own time, it'll be mine."

Yeah, there's times I stress that I'm 22 and still learning to drive, or single or... whatever. But this song reminds me that everything that is meant to be will happen, and I don't have to plan my life in accordance to when everyone else tells me what I should be doing and when.

Number 2: Last Night on Earth
Now, this is a song with proof that is works as an amazing song both acoustically and with a whole band. The album had the big version, but she performed it acoustically on her tour. And it's a really beautiful love song.

"If tomorrow never comes, I want you to know right now that I'm gonna love you until the day I die.
And if tomorrow falls asleep, can you hold me first. I'm gonna love you like it's the last night on earth." 

Number 1: Braveface 
From the very first note, I love this song. It kicks in with an upbeat, strong piano melody and it's just a song that you know when Delta wrote it, she was happy and in love.
It's all about living a relationship in the public eye, and well... putting a brave face on. The chorus is totally awesome.

"Feels like I'm running with my high heels on, and they're chasing us waiting for it all to go wrong.You're my umbrella against their sticks and stones, as long as we keep smiling they'll never know.Put your braveface on." 

And it has strings (you know that's kind of my musical weakness. I love strings!). The only thing is, I really want to see Delta sing this live. I've seen it happen twice (once in reality, the other on YouTube). On the YouTube one, she gave the microphone to some fans to sing; and when I saw it at her Believe Again tour, she went down into the audience and didn't even sing any of the song! 

So, that's my Top 10 Delta Album Tracks. And now, here is my ranking of my favourite Album tracks from Child of the Universe. Even though I'm not putting up links to them, I strongly encourage you all to look them up and have a listen!

1. The Speed of Life
2. War on Love
3. Knocked Out
4. Hypnotised
5. Safe to Believe
6. I'm Not Ready
7. Child of the Universe
8. Touch
9. When my Stars come out

I just love them all, I simply couldn't mix them in with the others.