29. Song No. 182: “All Into You,” Blu Sanders
5 to Care About, 2002

So this is the first time I haven’t been able to find a full version of a song and I’m so disappointed that it had to be this song to earn such a dubious distinction. Like, I even waded through the curtains of cobwebs on MySpace in my far-flung search, that’s how desperate I was to find it because I freaking love this song and it’s a bummer how severely underrated Blu Sanders is.

My college hosted a spring concert every year, inviting some decently biggish musical name with mass-enough appeal to play on campus, switching between a rock act one year, a rap act the next, and repeat. I think it was my junior year that the student body collective made a big enough stink about the spring concert that year (it might’ve been around when everyone started realizing that Howie Day was an insufferable pig) that the SEC brought in Matt Nathanson to play a much more intimate concert, and I exploited my yearbook-photographer credentials harder than ever to get good seats for what remains one of the best shows my college put on.

His opening act was a much more obscure (be still, my indie-snob heart!) solo act, a young dude named Blu Sanders whose acoustic set was an absolute joy. A friend and I offered to help bring his gear back to his car, and during that trek I decided that I was going to order one of his albums when I stumbled back to my dorm.

Somehow, that turned into a package containing not only an autographed copy of 5 to Care About but also the other two LPs that comprised his entire discography at the time. I got so excited thinking that perhaps I made a lasting impression on this musician I’d spoken to for, like, five minutes; a musician friend burst my confidently misguided bubble by explaining the guy was probably just eager to get his music into the world.

Either way, I’ll never turn down free music, so I ate up my newest musical haul. 5 to Care About (and its six-song track listing being the kind of math I can absolutely get behind) wound up being a short and sweet collection of tunes that monopolized my CD player’s real estate for a while. I adored the penultimate tune “Get in the Car and Drive” and its acoustic version’s secret-song last-track capstone, but “All Into You” was the celebratory ballad that will always be a surefire way to my heart.

Hearing this one again rocked me right back to its omnipresence on every mixed CD I made for at least a few years following, including a number of windows-down-volume-up summertime driving mixes I made for myself. If ever a song sounded like warm wind whipping through my hair on a long drive alone through my kind of weather, “All Into You” has a mighty strong claim to that feeling.