Let the music move you

I am always amazed by the power of music. It has the ability to evoke so many emotions in me. The right song can move me to tears or take me back to a warm summer evening in a car with the windows rolled down. I don't believe that music can make you do things you don't want to. Please do not mistake this for some Tipper Gore inspired rant about playing songs backwards or heavy metal being responsible for a sudden spike in murders. She was, and probably still is, delusional. Kids don't kill because they are following subliminal orders from Ozzy and lord only knows that people were masturbating long before Prince recorded his first song. I am just pointing out that music truly is mood altering. I believe in can sooth the savage beast as the saying goes. Music with the right beat has been proven to calm a person and change their brainwave pattern. Science aside, music has power.The power to take make us laugh or smile. Sing along at the top of our lungs or silently with tears streaming down our faces. It has the power to take us to a different place and time. Certain songs can almost make me SMELL the suntan lotion and salt water. For instance, Hot Child in the City will place me in my sister's jeep on our way to get yogurt. I am far older than my 7 years riding in that jeep. The wind is blowing in my hair and I am excited at the prospect of staying at my sister's house where I could stay up late and eat whatever I want. Any track from Van Halen's 1984 puts me on a boat lazily floating the lake with my family. Too Young to Fall in love brings me face to face with the first boy to make my heart skip a beat. I can smell his cologne and see his shaggy blond hair as clear as if I could reach out and touch him. Appetite for Destruction will return me to the beaches of Southern California the summer before my senior year and many crazy days and nights spent in "hollyweird". The right song from that album will carry me into my senior year and put me in a car with my best friend trying to figure out how to hide boys from her dad. Youth Gone Wild will find me in the parking lot of my high school burning our senior flag with my classmates, many of whom I would not see again for 20 years. There are many, many more songs in my soundtrack of life. I don't have the time or space, nor do you probably have the inclination to read them all. My point is that maybe music is the illusive time machine the sci-fi junkies search for. Maybe we do have the power to be somewhere in the past. Maybe all we need is the right beat........

Until next time...

R