Music Makes the World Go Round
IT’S EARLY MORNING. 653am to be exact. I’ve been up for a couple hours. I have music in my ears. I have always been a big-time MUSIC LOVER. This absolute love of music—the lyrics, the beautiful sounds, the emotional expression, for when I have no words, for when I feel silenced by strong tides of emotional waves—it’s soothes me when I’m sad, it cuddles me in it’s love and tenderness, it’s a companion to anger and frustration (yay angry hardcore punk rock!), i. The ebb and flow of life. I have a soundtrack to every time period of my life. I have over 175 playlists I’ve made on Spotify. Nearly 100 of them are public. Follow me! https://open.spotify.com/user/121634761?si=917bada3496543f0&nd=1
You’ll love it! I love every genre except most jazz and modern country. Other than that , it’s sky’s the limit with the songs I like and from each decade. I love the storytelling in music. Always a storyline when there are lyrics or associations with a certain part of my life.
Where did this love come from? My father gave me the gift of music. We’d go on road trips to Gunnison to visit my grandparents and although he grumbled all the way there, off and on, it was the music that dissolved his anger, his rageoholism. I associate music with safety. He never hit me or put me down when there was music playing. We would drive through the Rocky Mountains listening to early Bee Gees, Simon and Garfunkel, Leonard Cohen, ABBA, Van Morrison, Cat Stephens, Elton John, Rod Stewart, John Denver, Fleetwood Mac and a tonof others. I’d stare out the window watching the pine trees fly by, giggling with my baby bro.
Music is a celebration. It’s a companion to the grieving process. It’s a break-up soundtrack. It’s a pep talk when you’re unsure. It’s a high energy voltage to get going, to get up. It’s a mood changer. An energy transformer. Music is beautiful.
I thank The Lord for music. It’s been such an important aspect of my life. I always think of my book turning into a film and me adding music to the soundtrack to the movie. How fun that will be. When I was addicted to cocaine, it was the album by Zero7 called Simple Things. I played it over and over as I let strangers with drugs into my Chicago apartment in Portage Park and as I drove to strange men and drug dealers houses. I held onto every note and my dear life on the lyics.. SIA’s eerie sounds—her voice as I journeyed deeper into the regions of my addiction. Distractions. Destiny were my favorites off that album. A desolate soundtrack . A dark pit. A bottomless pit. Chasing the dragon. Chasing that first high and never obtaining it.
My recovery has a soundtrack too. I’ll write about that another time.
Check out my cocaine journey soundtrack:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5X8iELiNjgKkD4a3WCDTar?si=afc7c203ced444cf
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2i0sxd2mLzAY2q8LUK0sqm?si=9c06046bb9ad47ed
and the ZERO7 album on YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV5FhnK2UKM
and important videos of the cocaine era: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_OKigBRqBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQZ7JUhQR-c&list=RDdQZ7JUhQR-c&index=2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1zrEGsj234
Oh and the collage photo is my original and not for sale. It hangs on one of my walls. Called “Hong Kong Chaos & Zen”
