when it's in your bones

if you don't regularly equate music with life then this post probably won't resonate quite as strongly as with those of you who do but, whatever the depth of your relationship with music, it's universally undeniable that notes, chords, harmonies, and melodies enrich our lives in ways *few other things can.

i'd like to take a minute just to celebrate some of the experiences that i'm sure every true music-lover can relate to:

- sitting in your car after reaching destination to catch the end of a song on the radio
- deeply lamenting the warbly death of a favorite cassette
- spending hours carefully assembling the perfect mixed tape (or cd)
- listening to the carefully assembled tape that someone mixed just for you
- reveling in the staticky radio frequency battle station have when you're driving out of the range of one and entering the range of the other
- buying a back-up copy of a favorite or rare cd/record (just in case)
- hearing a song that you're sure must have been written for you and only you
- listening through headphones and devouring the intricacies you miss (fingers sliding down strings, coughs, inadvertently deadened notes, laughs) with more diffuse speakers
- the joy of finding and listening to a long-lost record/cd/tape and intuitively knowing exactly what song comes next
- the music making you cry
- hearing new music for the first time
- the extreme joy of finding the long-lost selection you though was gone forever
- putting obscure sound clips (like snippits from german language tutorial cd's or lines from movie scores/soundtracks) on mixes
- hearing a song and remembering precisely every detail of a place/time/person/thing you experienced when that song was playing
- learning the REAL lyrics and realizing what a dolt you've been for years :-)
- knowing the whole album. every word. every note. every breath. every pause. every crackle. everything.
- pulling over or slowing down because your radio reception is fading and you know you'll be in a dead spot soon but you REALLY want to hear the song
- singing along...loudly (if you can't sing well, sing loud!)
- waiting for days with a blank tape in the recorder waiting to hear the first notes of a song so you can sprint to the stereo and hit the record button
- finding a great used CD
- the arrival of a long awaited album
- traveling much longer to get to a show than the show actually lasted
- learning a new tune/lick/riff/technique
- being caught obliviously ROCKING OUT in your car by another motorist and the awkward smile that follows
- being in awe of a performer's killer abilities
- lusting after an instrument you can't yet afford
- hearing a cover version and fucking HATING it
- hearing a cover and loving it
- "discovering" a life-changing band or song

and the mother of them all....

- LIVE MUSIC!

(my belief...and trust me, it's been sorely tested, is that any live music is better than no live music...at least they're trying)

those are just a few of the MANY reasons why music = life and are things we music-lovers share across time and space. if you also agree that music = life, please share some of the other experiences that you believe all of us music slaves share.

in the meantime,

~thorns is rocking out thoroughly!

*the PG version of the "few other things" noted above: freshly ground almond butter, campfires, and my grandmother's fried apples and biscuits