… for giving birth to someone who makes me FEEL: happy and sad and hyper and morose and
infinite (depending on the moment).
It’s
not just one person; it’s the collective group of people who make music, and
thus provide the soundtrack to my life.
My ipod shuffle might as well be a teleportation device, because it
takes me from place to place – even sometimes to places I’ve never been. I might be sitting here on my deck, but my
brain is in a hundred different places.
Right now, I’m with Jack Johnson and Eddie Vedder in Hawaii, chillin’ on
the beach with a ukulele. But then
Andrew Bird interrupts and tells me (in his pompously intellectual way) about
machinations and palindromes. I love
Andrew, but I think if I met and spoke to him, it might end up in a fist fight,
because he would have a certain look on his face that I would want to punch
off. That doesn’t make his songs any
less good.
Outside,
there is no breeze at all, but I know my music is carrying to the homes around
me. It’s not like I have it all bassed
out and cranking from my garage like a Council Bluffs trailer park (wait, do
they have garages?), but I can tell that the guy working in his yard a couple
houses away is semi-listening. Do you
ever wonder if people judge you based on what music you’re listening to? I think I might do that to other people,
subconsciously. And while I’d like to
listen to music all the time at work (like when students are working on
assignments or whatever), I can never think of what music will make everyone
happy. Someone is always going to be a
tool and say, “what is this shit?” (or
whatever…) People are often unwilling to
listen without prejudice.
Example: Murder By Numbers is happening right
now. (The Police) Listen to it – right now. Seriously – navigate away from this
page. What a great fucking song. Turning murder into art. What’s not to love? And here come The Smith’s with Girlfriend in
a Coma. Really? Who writes this shit? And why do I like it? I don’t care.
It makes me happy; and in a world where most things suck ass, I will
take what I can get.
Let’s
not forget John Mayer, who talks to me like he’s in my head all the time. He’s like the positive voice coming in over
my shoulder. And then there’s Florence, who’s
not really the “bad” voice, but she gets to the guttural, animal part of me and
makes me want to howl. When you stop to
think about it, there’s really nothing wrong with the animal part, so why not
just harness the dark part? I’m doing it
– who gives a shit what other people think?
It’s not like I’m frothing at the mouth; it’s just music. It’s wrong NOT to howl. (Ask any person who has been to a Grateful
Dead concert, because I distinctly remember howling to the moon with Jerry
Garcia in the middle of the Nevada desert.)
I’ll
take the Maroon Five “Sunday Morning” getting all sexy and mournful and I will
love it the same as Tupac and Biggie getting’ dirty with the impromptu rap. It’s ALL good. I suppose (if I had a gun to my head) I could
even enjoy contemporary country music (though I’d have to know the gun was
loaded and my life was on the line).
My
point is this: life would not be the
same without the soundtrack making it memorable and creating vantage
points. No matter how many times I hear
Dave Matthews’ voice, I still get chills when he sings about tangled tongues and
lips. I say, yes, Dave. I will.
And yes, Eddie, I will think about whatever you want me to think about. Just sing it in my ear for a second, and I’m
yours. At least for a while. (which is really all I can promise anyone…)
When
music and words get together, that can be a very powerful thing. It hardly matters whether it’s live or in
your basement or on your car stereo or jogging with the ear buds. Music makes everything better and a little
more clear. It’s a different lens, and
god knows we all need a different perspective sometimes. I think Aldous Huxley said it best: “After silence, that which comes nearest to
expressing the inexpressible is music.” Thank you, LSD-, doors-of-perception, and Brave
New World- guy. I agree.
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