“Do you use Spotify?” I asked my niece. “I’d like to create a playlist with the music and the Stuart McLean story that I include in my book, but I have no idea how to do that. I don’t even have an account.”

She immediately offered to help me, and we spent an evening listening to music and choosing pieces that I mention in Hope Beyond Our Sorrows. I had no idea that Spotify had a gazillion different versions of “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today”!

Then she sent me a link so I could open my own account and collaborate further on our play list, choosing more songs and placing them in order. It’s available here as Songs of Hope.

Unfortunately, as a collaborator and not the original creator, I’m not able to change the title or description myself, and instead of bothering her every time I think of different wording—which as an editor, is every other day or so—I created a playlist on my own Spotify channel. By then I was on a roll, so I created a Hope Beyond Our Sorrows playlist on YouTube as well. Apple Music, anyone?

For a list of all the recordings and how they fit into the book, please see the list below. Or if you’d prefer, go straight to the playlists:

Playlist for Hope Beyond Our Sorrows on Spotify

Playlist for Hope Beyond Our Sorrows on YouTube.

Healer of Our Every Ill

One of my favourite contemporary hymns that inspired the title for my book.

Abide With Me

Chapter 5: One of my favourite traditional hymns that speaks of eventide, darkness, and God’s abiding presence.

You’ve Got a Friend
Longer
Up Where We Belong
Chariots of Fire

Chapter 10: In my early grief, I often listened to my Dearheart’s collection of 1980s music. Carole King recorded “You’ve Got a Friend” in the 1970s, but it was together with his ’80s collection, and years later when we were in New York city on vacation, one of the highlights of our trip was Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. We saw the movie, Chariots of Fire, when it was released in 1981, and it remained his all-time favourite. Just like Eric Liddell, who is featured in the story, my Dearheart felt God’s pleasure when he ran too.

Christ the Lord Is Risen Today

Chapter 11: In Hope Beyond Our Sorrows, I quote Charles Wesley’s great hymn as it appears in Hymnal: A Worship Book which we regularly used in the church I pastored:

Christ the Lord is ris’n today, Alleluia!
All creation joins to say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing oh heavens and earth reply, Alleluia!

But as with many older hymns, the wording has varied over the years, and this is reflected also in my playlists on Spotify and YouTube since they include some alternate wording.

Safe Home, Sweet Light

Chapter 11: I first heard this song a few months after my Dearheart’s death, when a friend shared it, dedicated to his daughter who had lost her life in an accident. He wrote: “The amazing Laura Smith (no longer of this world) sings one of my favourite songs for others who also ‘are home’.” It’s now one of my favourites too.

Ghost

Chapter 11: As I was out driving one day, I heard this song by Justin Bieber on the radio. It was so striking that if there had been a parking lane, I would have pulled over to listen. I found out later that it was written with singer/songwriter Jon Bellion after the death of his grandmother.

The Piano Man
Here Comes the Sun
One Moment in Time

Chapter 11: More classic rock/pop music from my Dearheart’s collection. We went to a Billy Joel concert in Vancouver, British Columbia—not on the same scale as his Madison Square Garden concert on YouTube, but the crowd sang along on “The Piano Man” too.

Love Never Ends

Chapter 22: At the end of the chapter, I reference this gently humorous story by Canadian storyteller Stuart McLean. In the book, I cite the print version, but it’s even better to hear the story read by Stuart McLean himself. That’s what gave me the idea of creating a Hope Beyond Our Sorrows playlist with the story and the music included in the book.

Elegie
Les Contes d’Hoffmann: Barcarolle

Chapter 28: I was introduced to Jules Massenet’s “Elegie” and Jacques Offenbach’s “Barcarolle” from The Tales of Hoffman at a concert put on by friends. Both pieces were written in the late 1800s, and hearing them both in the same concert became part of my grief journey.

The Tree Song

My Dearheart and I had gone to a Ken Medema concert without knowing who he was, and we left inspired by his faith, his personal story of resilience, and the way he engaged all those who were present. When a friend asked me for a song to sing in my Dearheart’s memory on a Sunday morning, I suggested Ken Medema’s “The Tree Song.” It was one of my Dearheart’s favourites and part of our shared history, we had sung it before as a congregation, and the song spoke of resilience, new life, and becoming what our Maker has made us to be. Although I don’t mention it in Hope Beyond Our Sorrows, I thought it would make a fitting final song in this playlist.