Wake Me When the Day Breaks

 So I was a band nerd in high school.  From an early age, I acquired an appreciation for music of all sorts, and even after I gave up the piano lessons and the French horn, that love has not left me.  Music has always been a powerful influence in my life, from writing to singing to praising to mourning loss to simply sharing and thus doubling my joy, I have always enjoyed music.  My tastes have run the gamut from Chopin to Milli Vanilli (shut up, you know you had that tape, too) to Pearl Jam to Simon & Garfunkel to Tchaikovsky to Snoop Dogg.  There's nearly no genre that I have failed to explore at some point, and very little that I've been unable to find at least something to appreciate about.

But there have been a few pieces, composers, or groups throughout my life that have just moved me.  Moved my soul.  Opened my mind.  Touched my heart.  Hopefully, you know the kind of music I mean.  A song that you can hear anywhere, anytime, and from the first bars, your heart skips a beat.  Like a deep breath after being underwater too long.  You inhale its rhythms, its melodies, its words… and somehow all is right in your world again.  It speaks to you – says everything you wish you could say and more.  It is almost tangible, this feeling.  You feel the music inside you.  You can't help but move.  You can't help but sing.  For me, sometimes these experiences have been songs of praise in church.  Sometimes they were a beautiful classical piece I was playing on the piano, or in band.  Sometimes it was an old CD of Simon & Garfunkel belonging to my parents that I discovered when I was barely 14.  The Beatles make me feel this way.  Sometimes it was an unexpectedly phenomenal concert.  Sometimes it was just the satisfaction of seeing the joy said music brought the ones I love.  But most recently, my friend Scott played a CD by The Black Crowes on New Years Eve at our house.  It was a relatively old CD.  The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion album.  Around 15 years old.  But from the moment the song, "Thorn in My Pride" began to play, the second the organ kicked in, from the first "shhhhh," I was taken to another world.  I was tired, it was late, and I just laid back and let the music soak in.  He and Dave were dancing in the living room, with looks of such sublime satisfaction on their faces as they sang along.  I felt like I had taken a sudden, much needed plunge into a warm bubble bath.  And then I heard "She Talks to Angels".  I know I'm way behind, all this is so old, but, oh how it moved my soul. That's what music is about.  Music is more than something you hear.  Real music is something to be experienced.  Something you feel, something that speaks to your soul, opens your eyes, opens your heart, leaves you a different person than you were even the few minutes before you first heard it.  I love these experiences.  And I never forget them.  I will never forget that night, the first time I heard those songs, and the looks on the faces of those I love as they danced about and sang along.  One would be hard pressed to come up with a better gift than the gift of perfect song.

Music is one of life's greatest pleasures, one of our greatest gifts.  Seek it out.  Feel it.  Sing it.  Share it.  Experience the bliss of a perfect melody and lyrics that speak to your soul and the feeling of completely letting go and just letting the music move your body as you dance in a world at least temporarily all your own.  There's scarcely anything better.