What song would you love your life to feel like?
Wake-Up Call #5
Good music takes you somewhere.
Sometimes it gives you a reprieve from your body or life. A welcome diversion. Other times, it drops you back into them. A reminder. Its time to come home. To deal. And feel. And heal.
In the 70s, my parents kept the turntable perpetually-stacked with folk and soul. Nina Simone. Country Joe and the Fish. Aretha Franklin. James Taylor. Marvin Gaye. Janice. Pentangle. Seals & Crofts. Carole King. Mixed in with a little Bach for when the grandparents came to dinner. The first bar of Simone’s Baltimore take me home. Carole King’s So Far Away never is.
In high school, my tastes “matured” to rock, metal, punk and new-wave. Joined a band. Played guitar. Badly. Sorry, mom. Actually, sorry neighborhood.
By the time my bandmates realized how terrible I was and began secretly auditioning replacements, I’d discovered my 6th-grade classical guitar lessons had given me finger-picking skills that made me a way better bass player. Mercifully, they let me stay, holding on for dear life as Andy the drummer beat his double-kicks into submission while I attempted something moderately resembling a groove.
A gaggle of groupies draped around stacks of equipment and amps in the corner, smoking and chatting through lavender lashes in admiration. I might’ve made that last part up. Nobody admired my playing. I could’ve cared less. I was in heaven. Our crowning glory was an outdoor gig at the town bandshell on Arbor Day. The bass line from The Clash’s Rock the Casbah will be forever emblazoned on my psyche.
Then, there were those moments in Dave Leonard’s basement. Sprawling across the tattered remains of hand-me-down rugs and garage-sale couches. Worn bandanas draped over crooked lamps, casting more shadow than light into a glimmering haze of smoke and semi-debauched conversation. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon poured out of speakers that cost more than my ‘71 Dodge Dart with 140,000 miles and a radio that wouldn’t quit. Sweet oblivion.
In college, I started DJing. Parties and clubs. The perfect outlet for a music-loving, gear and beat obsessed introvert. It justified (and paid for) turntables, massive stacks of speakers, amps and cables, and a van-sized, milk-crate record collection I’d kill to have today. I realized how much more fun I was having losing myself in others’ music. Three nights a week, a sea of humanity would stumble into a club or party seeking deliverance. I’d be safely tucked behind a table or booth, crafting an hours-long, sweat-infused journey into the nether-corners of movement and emotion. Breath and devotion. My dirty little secret, I was having more fun than everyone combined.
Music has always been the place I could visit on a dime to transcend a moment or come back home to it. To stop thinking, and just feel. And be. For the first 35 years of my life, it was my go-to. No matter what else swirled around me, music kept me okay.
Which is why it’s so strange that, for the last two decades, without intention, I largely tuned it out.
Life. Just. Got. Busy. Married. Became a parent. Started companies. Wrote books. Got distracted. Disconnected from something that, for so long, had been such a big part of not just my identity, but my essence.
Maybe it’s the season we’ve been traversing, more akin to collective devolution than evolution or elevation, but I’ve been coming back home to music. And, it feels so good.
As my friend
taught me, sometimes “delulu is the solulu” and, for me music is one path.Instead of vinyl and mixtapes, it’s largely digital now. I miss hearing the subtle hiss and crackle of well-worn vinyl under the grooves. Or the click of a cassette tape letting me know it’s time to flip it over (I know, I know, Gen-X to the core). But, I also love the convenience of having the world of beats and bliss at my fingertips.
Been crafting playlists for different activities. Sleep, chill, gatherings, meditation, writing, painting, movement. Just being. Started seeing live acts again. And, God help the neighbors, picked up my guitar again.
Over the years, I’ve come to a simple truth…
Music is one of the few things in life that holds the capacity to bypass conscious experience, make a beeline to the soul, and inspire collective effervescence.
Our tastes may differ. Any given person may disagree on what kind of music takes you there, but we all have a conduit through which “our” music becomes a portal to transcendence.
For me, I don’t care about artist or genre. Good is good. Blind Faith’s Can’t Find My Way Home. Portishead’s Glory Box. Koy Oladokun’s Sweet Symphony. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Lenny. Brandi Carlile’s Broken Horses. Wu Tang Clan’s C.R.E.A.M. Bonnie Raitt singing John Prine’s classic Angel From Montgomery. H.E.R.’s Hard Place. Mac Miller’s What’s the Use featuring a wicked bass groove by Thundercat. Public Enemy’s Harder Than You Think. or U2’s Beautiful Day all just take me away.
The right music, at the right time truly can make you feel more alive, and less alone.
That brings us to today’s Wake-up Call Prompt #5
If you could pick a single song to best represent the way you would love your life to feel, what would it be?
It’s less about the lyrics, and more about the “feel” of it.
For me, I’ve been keying in on Van Morrison’s Into the Mystic.
Every time I hear it, I just go somewhere. Everything feels right. Even when it’s not, it makes me feel like, in the end, it will be.
And, for bonus points, what are your top-5 '“More Alive, Less Alone” tracks?
Share in the comments.
As a "there's a playlist for everything' sort of person--the thing that popped into my head (rather surprisingly--as in, out of nowhere) was the soundtrack to Out of Africa--there's something expansive about it-and calm....It's probably that sense of "wholeness" that I get when I listen to it. Thx for asking us to play along!
‘Wildflowers’ by Tom Petty and ‘Southern Cross’ by Crosby Stills & Nash. The latter is my everything right now as the soulful human in my life who loves it is in the fight of his life against stage 4 cancer (at age 44). We will sail that reach on a following sea.