Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Whining

Music affects me deeply. It always has. When I was a baby, Willie Nelson, Mozart, and Vivaldi would calm me down. In my elementary school days, my siblings and I listened to the Rolling Stones, Harry Chapin, and the Godspell soundtrack on weekends when we cleaned the house. Middle school introduced me to Madonna and early 90s pop and alternative. In 8th grade, I fell in love with The Beatles. After that, it took a long time to become aware of Bush, Nirvana, The Cranberries. My senior year a boyfriend introduced me to Jethro Tull and Wyclef Jean, expanded my understanding of Led Zeppelin. My husband introduced me to Tool. Between those two boys, I fell in love with Metallica. In college, I got more J-Tull, I learned the eroticism of Pink Floyd, and I was exposed to some more emo/punk/college music. Now I'm being swept away by the R&B inspired pop and worship (almost but not quite begrudgingly) at the altar of Lady Gaga.

The Eagles' "Desperado" came on my pandora radio station a little bit earlier, and I thought the lyrics were prudent to my situation with my upcoming visit to Texas. I have the opportunity, maybe, to see a guy I used to date, a guy who is definitely emotionally tied to a good portion of the songs that I would die without. And seriously, that's the extent of our bond. That's wasn't enough to base a relationship on then and it's probably not enough to even base a simple friendship on now. But boy would I love to have coffee with him or use him for his Rock Band :-). We saw each other several years ago and managed to talk intelligibly about comparative religion (another similarity, though carrying less gravity).

"Everlong" by Foo Fighters came on a bit later. That's a song I learned with my husband. That and the music of Incubus and certain really crappy dirty pop songs from around 2000 will forever be linked with him. But Everlong had me thinking about marriage and how long one has to suffer before giving up. "The only thing I'll ever ask of you - You've got to promise not to stop when I say when." Well, he said When. And I said When. And I don't really question that decision much. There are brighter days ahead.

And then a song comes on and reminds me of the links to which it's connected, the people I've loved and hated, nostalgic memories of times I can't get back - and probably shouldn't try to.

Now it's Rihanna with some sage advice - "Shut Up and Drive."

Campus closes in less than two hours. Time to get a move on and prepare.

1 comment:

said...

I have terrible taste in music. Or maybe it's just that I don't know where to look to find good music. In either case, it's been so long since I've heard anything good that I've pretty much given up on music all together.