Gratitude for Music...

eschaden
44 minutes ago
3 min read

I do not have the best musical taste, but I really do love music. All kinds of music. Mostly rock, country or punk. Truth be said, I pretty much love all of it. Given the right circumstances, I will listen to just about anything. And to see it live??? I am there, no questions asked. There is something about being in a venue that smells of stale beer, where you can hear the amp crackle, and feel the charge in the air on your skin. The way the music reverberates in your body, sometimes so loud and hard that you can feel your teeth rattle. That is the best.

Music is rarely too loud, or too much. I love that no matter what mood I might be in, there is a soundtrack for that mood. And that is how I think of music in my life, soundtracks.

I have a playlist for every major relationship I have ever had. And I love that if I ever want to relive or revisit that relationship, I can just queue up the playlist and go back in time. To relive the joy and the sorrow. I do love me some good old fashioned melancholy.

My emotional range really does not need amplification. But somehow I have always believed it to be so, so everything important in my life has a song or an album associated with it. I love that music is so integral to my life that every hard or wonderful thing has a particular set of songs that are forever matched with the time period, the emotion or the person. I didn’t do this intentionally, it just happened. It is my relationship to music.

I have no musical talent whatsoever. I cannot sing or play an instrument. But somehow, I have found myself indelibly changed by the experience of music so I have to come to believe that I am an integral part of this whole music thing. My part? Audience. I am the best audience member. I allow the music of others to come into my heart and soul and allow it to change me. Every note and lyric forever etched into my being. My eclectic taste in music has given me some pretty great experiences. And my willingness to play my role as audience member, never seems to flail or wane.

Every year I am sure I go to at least 5 or 6 major concerts and then double the number of shows. My favorite venue is a small, hole in the wall pub and whomever is playing. I love the vibe and feel of small time music, or big time music played in a small venue. I love dancing, swaying and allowing the music to wash over me and alter me in whatever way it will.

I will tell you that most, if not all of my spiritual experiences had a soundtrack. And the ones that didn’t, were accompanied by a sweet still silence which is its own kind of music.

I hope I never lose my love of music and that age doesn’t round me out and down into someone who isn’t interested in what is new and emerging. I hope that music will always fill my life and that I will always have soundtrack to my life.

One of my most favorite things to do when traveling in other countries, is to get in the car, roll the windows down, hit shuffle on my phone and turn up the volume. Even just relating this has taken my mind back to trips across Ireland, Australia, Bali and New Zealand. If I close my eyes, I am there once more.

Music has helped me make sense of things that I struggle with, mostly matters of the heart. It plagues me still that I can have so much love to offer and still manage to fuck it up more often than I get it right. Thank God for music to help me relate to all the other lovers out there who are similarly situated. I not only can relate but your words have made my experience better, ameliorated, and assuaged. I love that something as simply complex as a broken hearted love song can make me feel part of the world again, bring me back to life when on that all too familiar downward spiral.

Thank God for music. All of it. My life is so much richer and fuller because of it. Long Live Rock and Roll!