The Power of Music
There was a time when a private movie soundtrack to accompany your
life sounded like an idea from a science fiction movie. It’s
one thing that makes movies so powerful – just as the train
pulls away from the station in the rain, cue Counting Crows. The
emotion hits you on all senses, making the scene all the more powerful.
In this day and age though, we are able to create these perfect
scenes in our own lives. The advent of the Walkman brought music
straight to our eardrums, and the revolutionary iPod emerged within
two decades.
The iPod is small and light enough to strap to your bicep or to
slip in the front pocket of tight jeans. The headphones subtly slip
directly into our ears, and our personal soundtrack is left to run.
Cat Stevens croons as the orange sun sets over Louse Point; Radiohead
mourns the falling of another rumpled brown leaf onto Main Street
in East Hampton. My friend recently endured a unique trauma –
she lives alone in a big house, and I think I remember her contemplating
getting a roommate at one point. But she did not invite the stranger
who decided to set up his home in hers – a bat! When she discovered
the potential risks of living in close proximity to bats, she had
to undergo a series of standard rabies shots. So there she was at
Stony Brook Hospital, awaiting a couple of shots in the butt, and
arm and feeling pretty sorry for herself. Just as the Film Festival
closes and the mass exodus from the Hamptons really begins, she
finds herself with a most unwelcome roommate and a few embarrassing
(and painful!) visits to the hospital.
But she endured. What got her through the excruciatingly slow day
in the waiting room? The Grateful Dead. To be exact, it was the
“China Cat Sunflower” into “I Know You Rider”
that filled her head, drowning out the unappealing sounds around
her – tears, shouts, complaints, moans, and depressing conversations.
But there was my friend, her mind at a summer music festival in
the hills, Jerry Garcia strumming his guitar. I wasn’t surprised
to hear how powerfully her iPod saved her. Music has such a profound
effect on us. It can uplift, soothe, and accompany. It gives a rhythm
to your joys, and it also gives voice to your hardships.
When I was living in Bangkok, alone in a studio apartment, I sometimes
felt like the loneliest person on Earth. It was a bustling city,
but I didn’t know a soul. And a bunch of strangers can make
you feel even more alone than a wide-open, empty expanse of beach.
This journey was before the iPod, so I lugged a CD player and about
50 CDs all over Southeast Asia. It sounds crazy, considering I was
carrying it all on my back and probably could have brought a few
more changes of underwear if I had filed down my music selection
a little bit, but I needed every CD. You never knew when you were
going to be feeling Willie Nelson, or when no one but the Beastie
Boys would do.
The song that ended up propelling me through the loneliest of times
was, not shockingly, by Tupac. His lyrics are written for the loner,
and the song that became my anthem was “Me Against the World.”
There I was, standing on my balcony, looking out at the hazy skyline
of Bangkok, airplanes darting across the sky, and Tupac was hollerin’
at me. “I know it seems hard sometimes, but for every dark
night, there’s a bright day after that. So keep your head
up, stick your chest out, and handle it.” So I’d take
a deep breath, wander down the stairs, and go cruisin’ through
the crowded streets of Bangkok on the back of a motorbike, linen
pants flying behind me in the wind. Thanks Tupac.
Whether you’re looking to drown in your own tears with Aretha
Franklin or you want to slip through the back pages of Bob Dylan,
the power of music in your life is something that this generation
takes for granted.
