A double post... gasp!

So, returning home from my show choir dress rehearsal, and a severe lack of motivation to study viral replication have lead me to ponder about the power of music. It's uncanny how verse and chord can completely describe human emotion.

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real

Music can express things that we don't want to talk about or admit. Behind our facades we put up to the world is often times sorrow that the eye can't see. We feel we must be strong, be adult, move on, get over it, but music explains our heart to our brain in a way that makes sense. It's a unifier, because when you feel awful and alone and upset and otherwise miserable, you realize that someone else has felt that way too, and generally, the only reason why that song is popular is that others have felt or feel that way as well. Music is ugly and gritty and real. How often do we sit in our cars listening to our radios and say, "hey, that's what I'm going through"? Life does have a soundtrack. You just have to listen for it.

I love him but every day I'm learning
All my life, I've only been pretending
Without me, his world will go on turning
This world is full of happiness that I have never known

Music let's us act out our emotions--our greatest fantasies. It expresses exactly what we'd like to do but we are either too smart or too chicken to actually carry out. Music takes us to that place in our heads and gives us the satisfaction of the thought of revenge of love of whatever...

I dug my key into the side
Of his pretty little souped-up 4 wheel drive
Carved my name into his leather seat
I took a Louisville slugger to both head lights
Slashed a hole in all 4 tires
And maybe next time he'll think before he cheats

Music proclaims profound truths that are only learned through experience. People may like a song for it's beat or clever lyrics, but people love a song when it explains something through which they have gone. When it characterizes an entire concept in one line.

Eastside love is living on the west end

I often associate events and people in my life with songs. It makes it extremely difficult to listen to those songs when a person leaves. When Ben went on his mission, I bawled every single time I heard "Run" by Snow Patrol for 6 months. I really couldn't listen to it at all after he broke up with me, and it's almost his eulogy/funeral dirge now that he's married and I will never speak to him again. There's so much love in that song, but that's not what I find in it. All I can think of is

To think I might not see those eyes
Makes it so hard not to cry
And as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do

The best part about music though, is when you're done feeling sorry for yourself, you can change the radio station and instantly find a new emotion. Music can make you sad, but it can also make you happy and giddy. Songs can empower. It is so easy to put yourself in the singer's position, feel the way he or she feels and pull yourself up by the bootstraps.

Well, what the heck, I went and did my best
And, by God, I really tasted something swell
And for a moment, why, I even touched the sky
And at least I left some stories they can tell

so, I should probably stop philosophizing and study for my test tomorrow, bye!