I love music. My grandmother frequently told me an interesting story about me as a baby. When I was about three or six months old, I was lying in my cradle, crying. She picked me up, she put me down, she fed me, she changed my diaper. Still I fussed and cried. At her wit’s end, she wound up a tiny Fisher Price music box and tossed it in the cradle. To her amazement (and relief) I stopped crying. Since I was just a wee lass, I can’t say that I remember this. However, I know it to be true.
At my grandmother’s, there was an organ that once belonged to my mother. I would sit at it every chance I got and play whatever songs were in the sheet music book. I got bored with that easily. To resolve my boredom, I began sitting under the organ and reaching up to play the songs without looking.
Music has always been my outlet. I have tried my hand at a few instruments. I played the flute in grade school but didn’t like it. I switched to the violin, and played that for four years. I gave up the violin. I went into junior high school and none of the cool kids had instruments.
Eventually, I wound up lying in front of the clock radio in the back bedroom with pen and a notebook. As I listened to the radio, I would write down the songs that came on. I once did this for an entire weekend only getting up to eat or pee. Hot hits played twice an hour, semi-hot hits played once every sixty to ninety minutes and the rest was up for grabs. I must have had 30 pages of songs. Yes, I was that dorky.
As I progressed into early adolescence, I found that I could release any emotion I was feeling by listening to music. If I wanted to stay sad, I’d put on some Pink Floyd. If I wanted to be happy, I’d pop in some 80’s pop or rock.
Since I had trouble speaking my mind as a young girl or showing emotion, I found that Def Leppard or Simple Minds could do a better job. I would tape record songs and push rewind and play at least thirty times so I could write down the lyrics and eventually sing along.
Somewhere around the transition from junior high to high school, I discovered heavier rock and eventually heavy metal. Little angels sang in my head the first time I heard Judas Priest singing “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming.” It turned out those little angels were the voice of metal god Rob Halford.
I am still hooked. I went through a brief rap phase, I went through a briefer country phase but still there were some songs that I truly loved from both genres and I have them on my ipod. I suppose they are my guilty pleasures. Hell, I even tap my fingers sometime to muzak when I am on hold. I know, I know… so sad. But so true.
What does music do for you?
