A cable outage due to a tropical storm leaves a person with time to sit and listen to music (or watch DVDs or read a book or whatever...this post is about music.). While my love for music fluctuates (doesn't it seem like "fluctuate" should have an -x in it?) between being merely enamored and being totally and completely blinded by the beauty, the love is always there. I was going through a stack of CDs, yes CDs...those wonderfully tangible little discs of light that carry both the notes and the space in between...those fantastically sensitive circles of multicolored sunshine that are going the way of the dodo, the betamax, and the outhouse...Anyway. I was going through a stack of CDs the other day and I've been listening to a lot of music that I haven't listened to in a long time. Now, it's all I'm listening to...in my car, at my house, wherever I am I find that I end up asking if I can put on a CD, listen to a song, hear a note or two. While I could go off on a completely separate tangent about rhythm, beats, melody, and all of those other things that make a song move forward, I'm not feeling technical today (although you wouldn't know it).
I'm all about the lyrics today. I had one of those mornings this morning when I woke up with a song stuck in my head and it wasn't the beat that was rattling around...it was the words. I'm that person who will listen to a song six hundred times in a row to tear it all apart and know it in every possible way...to the point where others who spend a lot of time around me have threatened mild physical violence if I hit the back button on the CD or MP3 player (yes, I do have an iPod...I'm not a Luddite for Krishna's sake) and make everyone listen to that song one more time. It's the words to the song that end up meaning the most. It's the only poetry most people hear today and there are millions upon millions of reasons to get involved, really involved, with a song. The physiological and psychological connections that music makes for us are astounding and sometimes, when I'm all caught up in something else, I forget about that and put my music into the cabinet or hide out with it while I'm working, my brain being fed a song or two via the headphones cupped around the input portholes on my head. Being disconnected from music that means something to you is a tragic thing. I think I've decided that I'd rather drown in a sea of music that I love than just feel the mist of a good musical moment on my face before I return to a silence filled with noise. I've decided that I will get up and dance about whenever I need to because the music has sunk itself into me so deeply I don't have a chance. I've decided to recognize the fact that when I dance to music I love I really feel like I'm communicating with my God. I've decided that even though I can attach a song to a person, I'm not going to do that to either the song or the person and I'm going to allow each to live their lives independently of one another so that each may be cherished and enjoyed for much longer. I've decided that there are songs I will listen to every day, come hell or high water (I've seen and/or been through both so it shouldn't be an especially daunting task), because they feed my soul, speak to my heart, and expand my intellect...three things that you should do for yourself every day anyway. I've decided that you can tell a lot about a person by the music they listen to and it's important to pay attention to that. I've decided that music is not the only way to judge character but it is a good indication of taste ;-)
So, with that in mind, any recommendations? If any of you are wondering, at the moment, I'm listening to DJ Krush, Ella Fitzgerald, RJD2, John Mayer, The Yardbirds, The Coasters, and lotsa roots reggae.
Regularly scheduled content to follow...thanks for checking in. I hope you are having a beautiful day.
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