Life’s Sound Track (Music) | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the category “Life’s Sound Track (Music)”

08 May 2012

Your Life’s Song

Can music come down to just 6 songs? Can it be that simple? What is your one most special song in your life?

I am reading “The World In Six Songs” by Daniel Levlin. It takes a small jump to understand that there are some fundamental ways that songs communicate: songs of friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge, and love. There seems to be a pre-historic yet beautiful process at play when we sing and dance at weddings, cheer at a concert, or just emerge ourselves privately on headphones full of music.

Just the other day my wife had mentioned how emotional she would get at certain times in our lives when she would listen to music. Not just one particular song or artist, but music itself. Why can a song make you cry in a matter of seconds? Like all of our senses, we trigger emotions ( and memories) around songs that emit emotion and intensity.

With so much music in my life, I can tell you that there are a lot of emotions tied to those songs that make the journey like a soundtrack in my life. Even if I forget they exist, as soon as I hear them it paints a picture and derives and emotion that is unique.

My daughter once asked me that “if I had to pick a theme song” that would be the song for the start of the movie of my life, what would it be? Oh man, that is such a hard one.. is it for you? Do you have that significant song that says it all to capture the important emotions of your life? No, not that song you can’t get out of your head (earwig songs Stephen King called them). No, not just the song played at your wedding or graduation party. But the song that has meaning because it is therapeutic, or bonds you with a moment or a cause, or bridges the emotions that you struggle with.

What is your song?

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life, Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged Emotion, Favorite Song, Music, Personal Soundtrack, Theme music

16 Apr 2012

2 Comments

A Famous Musical Moment In Time

Climb The Mountain [Remastered]

When I was younger, much younger than today. I dreamed of being a rock musician and being famous. Almost every guy I knew that was in “a band” in those days had an ambition to be famous. Oh sure, there was the pure satisfaction of being in a band and creating music, creating a sound that would make people come and listen to you when you played in public. But that was just a taste of what could be. Could we be someone who everyone would play on their car radios, or play loud at parties with a bunch of rockin’ people dancing away the night?

Not that any of my musician friends truly believed that we were on our way to stardom. We had some idea of what it could be like, one of the bands I was part of even “opened” for some bands back then that became pretty well-known. But that was a small thing really. The band will forever be grateful for the opportunity to create that time, to create that moment that would be musically connected to someone with music we wrote. Of course it wouldn’t be memorable enough to become the next gold record. But it was something captured by the five of us like a painting that someone would paint and hang on the wall.

So here it is decades later. Me with a family full of love and life and children. A career, a home, cats on the couch and dogs in the yard. No one will recall those days except a few musicians and the road crew that dragged our sorry souls around from place to place. There will be the basements and garages that still ring out the tones of bands we loved. The memory of those prime nights when every thing went well with the crowd, and we had visions of fandom and success (like some arena rock band waving to the crowd of teens). Echoes of Journey, Styx, Kansas, Boston or rockin with the old timers of the British Invasion or even farther back with the distant reverb of Buddy Holly or rocking at Sun Records.

A few years back we had a reunion that had taken decades to realize. Indeed with much less hair, many more responsibilities, and many more pounds. We still had a touch of that remembrance, of the creation of our original music that was so much just designed to honor our musical heroes. With a bit more sensibility, and some recording equipment we recaptured the music we wrote so long ago, so our kids could hear it just once. (Attached is one of our originals). So we could play it from time to time and say “that was us” – back then we had some fun, played for some people and made them cheer. Yup, we were famous, successful – at least in our minds eye.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life, Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged Being Famous, Journey, Music, Rock music, Stardom, Starrider, Styx

01 Mar 2012

Sing With Your Head Up

“sing with your head up
with your eyes closed
not because you love the song
because you love to sing” (Aaron Marsh/Copeland)

There are days where I have no time to really think about how simple things can be… I hop in my car, dash out to work, get thru the day, get home and eat and relax and then start over.

I recently realized that lately I never stop to sing, stop to take the time to just raise my head and sing. Not because I love the song, but I love to sing. Its a chance to make joyful noise, and allow yourself the opportunity to look at the day and be thankful. Seems like everyone around me could use the break.

“i’ve never any time to play
i always seems to slip away
but it never really goes by
while i wait here with my lullaby
for our only try” (Aaron Marsh/Copeland)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzhAlxT2_H0

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life, Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged Copeland, Grace, Self-Awareness, Sing

28 Feb 2012

The First Time I Heard The Music

The “First Time” for Music. There are so many first times in one persons’ life you could dedicate a book to it. Since music is a theme, I wanted to recall some of my best firsts with music that changed me forever. My top 5 Albums. What albums have changed your life? Made an indelible impression on you forever?

1 Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: I held it in my hands that summer day and listened to it over and over and read the words (they included the fickin words) and stared at the cover. I didn’t have the money for the stereo version- I bought the mono version. It didn’t matter, I was consumed by it. It still amazes me every time I listen to it end to end. It seems like a much longer album, but it wasn’t that long from begining to end.

2 Who’s Next: I blew a set of speakers because of this album. I think it was on “Baba O’Rielly”, but it maybe could have been “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. I can’t tell you how great it is that all of my teenagers love this album as much as I did in 71. They totally get how it influenced what they listen to today. It still makes sense even now. The songs. The lyrics. The music. Since then I can recall just one other time jacking up my speakers: Blink 182.

3 Ziggy Stardust and Spiders from Mars: What Sgt Peppers did in its day, Bowie helped glam rock and all that it would be. It captures the heart of Velvet Underground and what would be the rest of the Mott the Hoople/T Rex/Lou Reed evolution. Even though there were better albums in that era in some pieces, this was the complete damn record.

4 Innervisions: Stevie Wonder man- in the way that this album was constructed is like some sort of opera for the inner city, but also like a painting, or a movie. It stands as a work of art. The album influenced the word of soul, funk, and everything that came after that. It influenced me by taking me beyond rock for the first time in a way that Motown music had not done before that.

5 Hotel California: The first time I heard this, I was in denial. I had heard the Eagles first album and it was stacked up with the America album in my collection. Then I listened to this album. It was the way that they captured the essence of California, and all that it meant to be the cool part of the next decade. The 60’s were behind us, this was the cool 70’s and this was the new band to take it there.

My top 5 list (of 50). Believe me when I say that there are a dozen really great contemporary albums on my personal list. I will forever be a Copeland fan (Beneath the Medicine Tree) and as emo it seems it is…Dashboard Confessional (A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar) or Something Corporate (North) or Jack’s Mannequin (Everything in Transit). Yes there is Dylan, Joni, Frank Zappa, the jazz of Dave Bruebeck or Miles Davis and others from the era gone by I guess- makes me feel old when I don’t feel old. But there they were.

Just bear with me here, music is the paintbrush that creates moments in time like pictures and the recollections that are always there. What are yours?