From the original email to family and friends:
I hope you're all staying safe and healthy during these strange and difficult times.
As we're all stuck at home, I thought one thing I might do to (hopefully) help lift our spirits is to send a daily email featuring a YouTube link to a song that I like -- probably something upbeat, or at least calming, as I'm sure we're getting enough doom and gloom from the headlines. Maybe it's a classic or an old favorite that'll make you smile; maybe it's something from an artist you haven't heard before that'll inspire you to hunt for their other material. (And do consider finding ways to support them -- buying their music online, etc -- as musicians are also struggling through this time with the cancellation of all their live events.)
I'll try to pick songs that run under 5 minutes, so I don't take up too much of your time; any songs that stretch for longer may just be included as bonus links. And I'll try to pull widely from a bunch of different genres. Even so, I realize not everyone shares all of my musical tastes, so feel free to ignore or delete as you please. Also feel free to email me to suggest future Songs of the Day, to ask me to add others to this mailing list, or to ask me to take you off (no offense taken!).
So, first up: The Civil Wars singing "From This Valley." Joy Williams and John Paul White made amazing harmonies together and I'm sad they're no longer a team, but at least we have these joyous performances to remember them by. They're also still making music separately, so feel free to check them out.
I hope you like these songs as much as I do. Sending you all good thoughts. :-)