A Dabble into Music

I have noticed the marked absence of music here. Maybe the last few years have been a bit too silent and I certainly haven't bought much music in the last few years or maybe because music for me is so incredibly personal...so personal I rarely listen to music I love with others around. I think music can strip away many of our self-protective barriers and I was never one to expose much of anything in plain sight....

What has been playing through my mind recently is "Wild Horses" as sung by The Sundays and the original is stunning by The Rolling Stones--each is haunting and eerie like an undefined ache. If I am completely truthful "Wild Horses" is playing a game of cat and mouse with Stone Temple Pilot's "Big Empty" in my mind (matches well with the Sin City montage).

I can't tell you how many times I listened to the soundtrack to The Crow when I was a teenager. I am one of those people who can listen to the same set of songs or even one song scores of times over until it becomes part of me. I remember in my sophomore or junior year of high school I drove my sister nuts by playing the Sliver soundtrack over and over again. She may have even been desperate enough to say she would buy me another CD.

When I was very little music always played a significant role in my life. As a baby my mother would put the radio on as I slept so that by the time I was 2 or 3 I couldn't fall asleep without the radio. Silence became oppressive and almost frightening as if it awaited something or someone to fill it up. When I began school and experienced sleepovers, I had to teach myself how to allow the silence to lull me to sleep.

I connect people with musical preferences much like I do with movie, television, reading, food or color preferences. When I drove in the car with my parents I identified certain music with each: my dad preferred Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles and Queen...my mornings when he drove us to school were filled with my dad's music--mostly thoughtful, reflective and sprinkled with laughter. My mother on the other hand preferred Donna Summer, The Pointer Sisters, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Toto, Gloria Estefan and Billy Ocean. I remember her snapping her fingers, cranking up the volume and bouncing a bit to her favorites. My mom was joyous, wild and free as her music lifted her and those around her.

When I began to develop my own identity and taste it started in large part with music. In kindergarten I sought out my own radio station (I wanted to hear "Mickey"which was hugely popular at the time and I love the clip of "Solid Gold" because I used to watch that show) neither my parents listened to and I was introduced to teen pop music. I developed a like for Spandau Ballet and I adored "Only the Lonely" by the Motels. At some point I became a lover of Duran Duran which endured and informed many of my later music preferences (Seven and the Ragged Tiger and Tears for Fear's Songs from the Big Chair were the first tapes I bought for myself).

Tears for Fear leads me to a magnificently sad and poignant rendition of "Mad World" by Gary Jules (the original "Mad World" as performed by Tears for Fear). Tears for Fear reminds me of another song I loved from those days: "Voices Carry" by 'Til Tuesday which happens to have been headed by the wonderful Aimee Mann. The Magnolia soundtrack is one of my favorites because of Aimee Mann--"Save Me" is simply gorgeous (also love the movie). Another song on the Magnolia soundtrack, "The Logical Song" by Supertramp, is an instant flashback to those nights when music was my companion in the dark weaving the sound to all my dreams and hopes of the future.

Hope you enjoy the little traipse through a tiny bit of the music that marks my life, dear reader.