Musical Imagination

When you listen to a song do you imagine it as a story? I do. Always have. And the story I dream may have absolutely nothing to do with the song itself. I remember a song by Bread (I forget the title) which reminded me of trying to catch my horse when I wanted to go riding on the Luce Line. I told my sister-in-law and she was incredulous. "Do you know what that song's about?" (lovers) I just said that wasn't what it was about to me.

Often, I imagine myself performing the song. If I'm alone I'll sing along. Some songs frustrate me because I just don't have that great of voice. (It's kind of like beef jerky. Either you love it or your hate it. There's no middle ground. Most hate it.) When they stretch for high notes I can't keep up and fall silent. Other songs I sing perfectly (in my mind).

Some songs make me cry. And on those days when the need is there I want to listen to those songs just over and over and over and over again.

If a song is powerful enough I can take it with me without actually hearing it. That's how I wrote a funeral scene in Tavaar's backstory. I was at work and writing in a journal without the benefit of music. I wanted (needed) the scene to be powerful, so I drew upon a beautiful love song and let it run through my conscious memory while I wrote. Perhaps no one else will be affected at all should they read what I wrote, but the pages are stained with my tears. For me, it was powerful.

Probably the song which most affects me is Elton John's, Levon. It reminds me of my Daddy. I remember how much I love him, and how mean I was to him the year before he died. And how I never told him I was sorry. But I was sixteen. If you're sixteen and your daddy's dying, stop being a mean little snot right now and go tell him you're sorry. Whether you do or you don't, you are going to remember what you did for the rest of your life. Make the right choice.

Every day I seem to have a song which speaks more to me than any other. I don't always post them on "Today's Music". I linked to "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". I have a story about that one, too. It's about quitting. But that's not my song for today. I'm listening to the song which speaks to me today: "Fool on the Hill", by the Beatles.

Someday I will learn my own lessons and truly become wise.

Some day.