An elusive soundtrack

About 6 years ago I went through a phase where I wanted my life to have a soundtrack. Sort of my own personal band to play the appropriate music at the appropriate time, to make the highs higher, and the lows more poignant and dramatic. You know what I mean I’m sure. For example, if you’re setting off on a big road trip, you might want the band playing Tom Petty’s ‘Into the Great Wide Open,’ or Bob Seger’s ‘Roll Me Away,’ or something similar depending on your taste in music. Well, in October of 2003 I came to a realization that there is plenty of music in my life, I just haven’t learned how to listen. For those who have read my ramblings before, you will not be surprised to hear that Thoreau, I think, understands what I mean. He went to nature to listen, and relates the following:

So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town,
trying to hear what was in the wind, to hear and carry it express!

(HDT, Walden)

Can we listen and learn from music then as well? I’ll assume it’s possible, and attempt the experiment with some music I was listening to around the time of my transition to the land of palm trees and warm sand.

“You see you don't have to live like a refugee”

-Tom Petty, ‘Refugee’

Joshu’s Comment:

This is, in fact, not true. Between November 2^nd, 2007 and January 6^th, 2008 I had a total of 3 different ‘residences’ in California, and 2 in Colorado. I put over 1,500 miles on the trusty Camry, and stayed in various hotels across Utah, Nevada, and California. I saw the desolate and barren salt flats of Utah and the lonely, wild open spaces in Nevada in towns like Ely and Eureka. My possessions meanwhile saw cities like Los Angeles and wherever else the truck driver decided to take them before they ended up in their 10ft x 10ft holding cell for a month and a half. With all the traveling from place to place I had almost all of my important belongings in the trunk of my car, and if I needed to get, oh, my passport for instance, I had to hope it wasn’t raining when I accessed my file system/coat closet/pantry/trunk/storage locker. A good box to organize my stuff became a precious commodity, and keeping track of all my stuff became an impossibly difficult task. Thus, while well-fed, housed, and usually but not always well-clothed, I’d say I fully became the modern day white collar refugee. So, Mr. Petty, I disagree –sometimes you do have to live like a refugee.

California here we come, the pie-in-the-sky-land.
Palm trees, and warm sand.
Though sadly we just left Rhode Island.
(We did what?!)
(Just forget it.)

- The Muppets, “Movin’ Right Along”

Joshu’s Comment:

As Homer would say, mmmmm, pie. I actually can conclude very little from this, and might note that I have seen only a few palm trees, and only cold looking sand as of this writing. As a side note, this song was in fact on my driving mix which I created before the trip to California. It is, in my estimation, the best ‘driving-to-California’ mix ever created by man. In my not-so-humble-opinion.

(Go West) Life is peaceful there
(Go West) In the open air
(Go West) Where the skies are blue
(Go West) This is what we're gonna do

-Pet Shop Boys, ‘Go West’

Joshu’s Comment:

Pet Shop Boys, surely you jest. While the skies are blue indeed, I’m loosing track of the number of disgruntled motorists on the roads that I’ve seen getting all pissy at perceived slights or the minor mistakes of other drives. Life is peaceful here? Please re-examine this claim, gentlemen.

Roll, roll me away,
I’m gonna roll me away tonight
Gotta keep rollin, gotta keep ridin,
Keep searchin till I find what’s right
And as the sunset faded
I spoke to the faintest first starlight
And I said next time
Next time
We’ll get it right

- Bob Seger, “Roll Me Away”

Joshu’s Comment:

Well, this feels a lot closer to truth. I have a feeling that there is no such thing as ‘getting it right’ in an absolute sense, but in a way I think I know what Mr. Seger means. Sometimes you know you’ve found a groove in your life that it good for you, and in this sense there is a ‘getting it right.’ I can’t say that I have done that, but I can say this: settling into a new place gives one a feeling of a fresh start. Now, there is no such thing as a fresh start I would say; we can’t just ditch what we carry with us. But there certainly is that *feeling* of a fresh start, and that’s an important difference to me. It gives you hope that you can maybe create a groove that fits you just a little bit better than your last groove (or rut!) that you created. So, in this case the lyrics are much closer to reality, something I can agree with.

“Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same”

-The Fray, “All At Once”

Joshu’s Comment:

Aaaaahhh. Well. This feels like it might be true. I won’t over-analyze this one, but just leave it with my gut reaction of yeah, that seems about right.

So, what can I conclude from my music experiment? My first thought is that if I do have a band director or DJ running my soundtrack, they’re a bit tone deaf, and need to be given a good smack upside the head. That said, I have to honestly admit that I have reached no further conclusions about music and meanings that I didn’t already have to begin with. Anticlimactic, I know. Boooo! Boring! Go Home! I can hear my friend Zach saying. Yeah.

Another friend, who has a considerable amount of dance experience, once said that all things can be interpreted as music, can be listened to, even silence. (I believe I’m remembering this correctly. It was a long time ago in a state far far away.) But what an amazing thing to say! Even silence has it’s own music. It only gives me confidence, though, that others have found something in the wind, in the silence, in the rhythms out there that are worth listening for. I may not be tuned into my soundtrack just yet, but I have faith that it exists.