Musical Memories

There are songs that no matter where I am, they will always take me to a memory. The first few melodic bars hit my eardrums and all of sudden I'm not longer in the present, but back far off somewhere with a people from the past.

Take Collide by Howie Day for example. Whenever I hear that song it makes me think of the Big T and I have to change the song in slight disgust. The same for Daniel Bedingfield, though that makes me think of a different boy it still gets the same reaction. I can't listen to it anymore.

When Heartland by George Strait blares over the radio I'm in the front seat of our '93 GMC Sierra. I'm in elementary school on a family vacation. Sneaky Snake and I like Beer by Tom T Hall, Redneck Girl by the Bellamy Brothers, and Toby Keith's Who's Your Daddy all do this to me.

Complicated by Carolyn Dawn Johnson sends me straight back to high school. I wanna hold you close, I wanna push you away, I wanna make you go, I wanna make you stay. Such teenage angsty lyrics to sooth my soul.

Switchfoot puts me in a car with the windows down on a hot summer night headed to the lake with friends. It makes me think of Aly & AJ when Ariel and I would sing to their songs at the top of our lungs. We thought we were so cool in high school.

Most of my music on my iPod now makes me think of Prince Charming because he feeds my musical hunger like it's nobody's business.

Songs can speak words that you're too scared to admit, they can put lyrics to feelings that you didn't even know you felt. Melodies and harmonies find their ways into your brains, into your feelings. You can go from sad to happy or vice versa just by turning on the radio. The mood of a room is set by the type of lyricals rhythms you choose to send out on the waves.

You can relate a song to a person, to a feeling, to a memory, a time, a place, a scent, a sound. It can speak volumes or it can be fun loving and fancy free. Sometimes it can be twisted around into something that it's not. Sometimes you can apply it in a way it wasn't written for but fits perfectly.

I ponder the songs I want played at my wedding when I have one, songs that I wish played during my life a real life soundtrack. We all do this. I wonder what it would be like to be completely deaf and never hear a song in your life? Would I miss this? Could I concoct my own music in my head?

What do you think?

They convey love. For people, for things, for places. Lost love, changed relationships. Love for the Holy Father, love for your earthly father, love for the guy that's not your dad but he might as well be. Love for everyone, love for no one. Is there a song that's not about some form of love?

That question was posed to me a few years ago and not a song came to mind that wasn't somehow about love.

So why is it, exactly, that that's all we sing about?