Song….
They say we’re supposed to have a song, but we don’t. That there are supposed to be some words from one musician, that encompass us in a few bars of black dots, but there isn’t. Sure, we have the song we danced to at our wedding {“Until” from Kate and Leopold by Sting}; sure, there were songs we liked for whatever season we were in. But there isn’t any ONE.
We come from the generation of mix tapes, then CD mixes…compilations of our own design, song that
was more us in its randomness than in the beats and rhythms and measured time that 3 minutes contained. Mixes that weren’t uploaded to some generic MP3 player, but painfully laid out in perfect timing, labels that were scratched out in tiny handwriting. Mixes that couldn’t be just erased with a touch of delete, but that were beaten and scratched, played over and over until most of the songs skipped. Oh the mixes we’d make, song after song, some fast and upbeat, others slow and languid. It all was us, you and I, we think in song.
was more us in its randomness than in the beats and rhythms and measured time that 3 minutes contained. Mixes that weren’t uploaded to some generic MP3 player, but painfully laid out in perfect timing, labels that were scratched out in tiny handwriting. Mixes that couldn’t be just erased with a touch of delete, but that were beaten and scratched, played over and over until most of the songs skipped. Oh the mixes we’d make, song after song, some fast and upbeat, others slow and languid. It all was us, you and I, we think in song.
Last Friday, I walked out the back door, to the Moms’ Night Out group, that I started. Hearing the gate latch behind me, only one song played in my mind, “I’m Free” by The Who. The same one that played on those beautiful sunshine days of summer, when I left the ulcer-causing office behind me.
The song doesn’t play like it used, constantly and on loop, memorizing every single crescendo and staccato note. The silence is too priceless for me, to be marred by song. I miss it though. Music constantly pouring from the massive speakers you built in shop class when we were in high school, in all their gaudy electric blue and silver glory, still sitting above our kitchen cabinets, even now. Driving along the beautiful back roads, smelling the damp earth of the woods, music blasting about how there’s nothin’ like the summer. Only when you’re home, does the song play again like it used to.
Lonesome drives home from Buzzards Bay. Five hours of songs, bewailing the distance between us, how I couldn’t take the miles, I couldn’t take the time until the next time I’d see you smile. Song that ticked off each mile marker on the road home. Song that blared from the lips of Celine Dion, as I drove all night to get to you.
There were binders and binders, and boxes and towers of tapes and CDs that we brought to OUR new home, now they collect dust in our attic, because they’ve been digitized. Song that has been reduced to nothing more than electronic code, no more is music a result of two objects brushing passed each other, gentle lovers.
No, for us there isn’t one song. There are a thousand songs, each singing a few discordant notes and uneven bars of what we’ve composed over the years.
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2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Be generous and leave an encouraging comment for the person who linked up before you. That’s the best part about this community.
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