Many people tend to abuse music. They violate it by listening but not acknowledging music. They do it just for distraction, not to have that uncomfortable anxious silence around.
I tell you: music is more. It all starts, in the classic case, in a record store. You lurk around, look after genres and grab CDs with appealing covers. The interesting thing here is, that you pick out music by its cover, a visually translated metaphor of what is waiting for you inside. If you are not a lucky guy who has a record store that can provide a short preview of each track on the album, you take it home, put it in the player, lie down on your bed staring at the ceiling for the last few dramatic seconds before the track begins.
Sooner or later you will have to polarize whether you like or dislike what you hear. Let’s take the best case: you lie on your back and listen to the soundwaves your stereo emits. Mellow basses stroke your ears, the rhythm of the clicking sticks makes you groove and finally the voice gives you a shiver. Excited you draw in every word that comes out and your room’s walls expand. Suddenly you see colors, maybe a landscape that you picture yourself in. The sun is shining and a gentle warm breeze swooshes through the barley fields at dusk. You look up and you can see the first stars have come out on the midnight blue top of the firmament. And you wander down a green alley with an eye-catching beauty by your side. You’ve got nothing in your pockets but the tune in your mind.
This is how particular songs become part of our lives. We project our hopes, wishes, and visions right into them. They turn into screens for our future we wish to accomplish. We listen to these songs over and over and dream of life and breathe liberty. Songs become part of our lives’ soundtrack when we finally tie them to certain phases or episodes of our lives.
That is exactly the point between past and future at which a song dies. As soon as we stop dreaming about a song it is drawn out and empty. In fact it is not empty, but has exhausted all its potentials and is overloaded with hopes, fears and worst of all reminiscence.
Listening to old songs can be wonderful, but it is never as great as it was the first time. They throw back what you put into them. Music can have huge impact on your life.
New music is what I am talking about especially. Get some new music from somewhere. Load it, buy it, copy it, borrow it, steal it! Put a lot of music into one pot, stirr it and be surprised what breathtaking song waits for you around the corner. Erase your memories. New music makes you a new person. Get off your dirty stinking ballast from once.
Loose yourself in the music and invent yourself one more time.
