I love most kinds of music with the possible exception of most rap and opera. No offense to anyone who likes rap and opera – it’s just not my cup of Earl Grey. Because I love music, I became a half-talented musician. I also rarely travel without the radio or CD player on in the car. I like to find music that fits the mood I happen to be in at the time. When the sun is shining, the weather is warm and I just want to have some good times, it’s a Jimmy Buffett kind of day. When I want to approach life with some straightforward, blue collar honesty I blast Bruce Springsteen. When I’m feeling more contemplative, maybe it’s a day for Loreena McKennitt. Need the blues? Then it’s absolutely Jim Byrnes. If it’s time to thumb my nose at society, it’s time for some Joan Jett.
Yes, I usually play old stuff. Some folks tend to mock those of us who like music that’s been around for a while. For my money, there is no such thing as a classic song that is less than 20 years old. I like to listen with a fresh perspective to music that I enjoyed a long time ago. For me, music that still stirs emotions and engages my imagination after all this time is more real than some “flavor of the month” kind of singer/musician that dominates the Grammys and is then yesterday’s news. Not that there isn’t some good music being created right now. It’s just that I like the comfortable texture of the songs I’ve loved for years. I love discovering new meaning in a lyric that I thought I knew inside and out.
Friends are like music. Each one has his/her own melody and rhythm of life. Friends bring their own harmony and counterpoint to whatever song I happen to be living. Over the years I’ve encountered a lot of people with their own unique music. Some were simply passing tunes that were there and gone. Some were in conflict with my song, creating dissonance and interrupting the timing. Others were classics. They were great fun when I first heard their melody. I listened to the verses of their lives and we lifted our voices together on the chorus, laughing when I got it wrong and belting it out when we were in perfect harmony.
Like a lot of music, the old songs sometimes get pushed into the back of our minds as time goes by. New musical styles and definitions clamor for our attention, trying to drown out the melodies that we loved from long ago. Often they are successful and before we know it, the classics are relegated to memories of years gone by. When we do revisit them in our minds we listen to the tunes with a bit of nostalgia, sad that they’re gone and not believing that we can ever sing like that again.
It’s tragic when old friends are allowed to become only memories, their melodies becoming fainter every year. To be sure, we still “remember when” but they deserve more than that. The friends of a lifetime deserve the opportunity to bring their songs back into our present, with their unique voices and styles. Their songs and their lives have new textures and deeper meanings than they did before. They also bring not just the songs we remember, but variations on themes and whole new songs created from their rich experiences. To not share these would be worse than tragic. It would be a sin.
My life has recently become richer – not in money (although I’m not averse having that happen) but in the music found in the lives some special people. These are people that I treasured. I thought that I had lost some of them. It turns out that they weren’t lost at all. They were just learning new verses to old songs and creating new songs to share. The greatest joy has been in bringing together the theme songs of the old relationships and the newer ones. It’s a concert of the soul. It may not be the Hallelujah Chorus, but it’s a harmony that compels one to believe in the divine.
I’m glad people are creating new music. That kind of creativity is always good. The best of the new will become musical treasure one day. I’m glad we have the opportunity to make new friends. Hopefully they will have the chance to become old friends. It is the friends that have been part of my heart for years that make me want to make music again. It’s a simple tune, but it’s from the soul.
Play on.
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