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Music Gets the Best of Me

After reading Mr. Bohank's blog about going to see Boston in concert, I got to thinking about music.  I was really born in the completely wrong decade when it comes to music, particularly rock music.

I'm a fan of the classics.  I love rock from the 60's, 70's, 80's and even a bit of the 50's.  50's to 70's I find are best for when you're driving, 'cause they're so easy to sing along to.  Yet, I was born in 1985.  I never had a chance to see some of the greatest bands (in my opinion). 

I have to admit, my parents got things rights.  The first concert I ever went to was The Moody Blues in Casper, Wyoming.  I was possibly 8 years old at the time.  My biggest memories are watching the crazy lazers that went on with the music, and I DEFINITELY remember the old man drummer coming out onto the stage with a five gallon bucket.  That five gallon bucket just happened to be filled with drum sticks.  And he definitely broke a shit ton of drum sticks that night, but he picked up a new one so seamlessly! 

So, I think, to have really enjoyed the music fully, I should've actually have been born when my mom was born.  She was born in 1950.  I could've been a true Beatles fan.  I could've seen Lennon when he was still alive, and Harrison too.

But beyond that, I can listen to and enjoy pretty much any kind of music.  Except rap.  And bubble-gum pop shit (like Britney Spears or Backstreet Boys and the rest of that genre of shit).  I've never been a big fan of rap.  Talking to a beat in ebonics...  Yeah...  It just sounds completely unintelligent.  There is very few hip-hop artists I can stand for the very same reason.  The Pop princess just need to die.  I can't stand their whininess.  Like Fergie's solo stuff?  Yeah, I can't stand it.  Her most famous single at the moment being "Big Girls Don't Cry"...  I can't stand it.  And it plays so much on the radio that I know all the damn lyrics.  And the fact that those shitty things pass for lyrics kills me.  "And I'm going to miss you like a child misses it's blanket"???  Are you fucking kidding me?  GEH!!!!

So, I've been trying to pinpoint where things went wrong.  I'm talking a particular year.  It had to have been somewhere in the late 80's or into the 90's when rock gave it's death rattle, because that's when the genre went to shit.  I just haven't pinpointed when that was exactly.

But yes, I enjoy all other types of music.  Punk (especially the original punks, like Boomtown Rats), ska, jazz, blues, bluegrass (I LOVE bluegrass), country, opera (for some reason, I like German opera best), hard rock, metal (thrash mostly), alternative, some R&B, classical (I love Vivaldi), folk, traditional music from other countries (although listening to Tibetan monks chanting isn't the best idea for when you're going to sleep- creeped the fuck out of me), and rock from other countries (J-pop/rock is my love, with Indian rock coming in second).  Hell, I can even listen to a polka and be happy.  I know I've missed many genres, but they're all ones that I don't have problems with.

My mixed CDs and my iPod have some of the weirdest combinations of music.  I know on one CD that's in the player in the Prius I have everything from Toby Keith, to Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, to Aqua, to Chuck Berry, to Alanis Morrisette, to Marilyn Manson, and then some.  I just love music. 

Along with music, like every other geek out there, I've found songs that seem to suit me well.  The first one that comes to mind is "I don't like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats.  "And the silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload, and nobody's gonna go to school today, she's going to make them stay at home.  And daddy doesn't understand it, he always said she was good as gold.  And he can see no reasons, 'cause there are no reasons, what reasons do you need to be shown?"  Yeah.  That's the way I feel quite often in times of prolonged stress.

The next that comes to mind would be "Beautiful Like You" by indie rockers Joydrop, from the album Metasexual.  I never considered myself to be an attractive person.  I was a total loser in high school.  I lived in a very hick town, comprised mainly of farmers and ranchers.  I had acne (that finally went away when I got put on birth control), I wore baggy jeans and oversized sweatshirts full time.  I wore skate shoes.  I had bangs for a while.  Then I started dying my hair.  The first time I tried to dye it, I used a dye to make my hair a richer brown (I have that ugly, mousy brown hair normally).  It turned out almost black.  So yeah, that added into the loser status.  And though it took a while to come to terms with it, and I didn't really accept myself for who I was until after I'd graduated and started my time in the Navy, I did learn to love who I was, whether I felt I was attractive or not, and that song seemed to fit. "If I was beautiful like you, oh the things I would do.  Those not so blessed would be crying out murder, and I'd just laugh, and get away with it too.  Like you do.  If I was beautiful like you, I would never be at fault.  I'd walk through the rain between the rain drops, bringing traffic to a hault.  But that will never be.  That will never ever be.  'Cause I'm not beautiful like you.  I'm beautiful like me." 

Music can be very moving to me as well.  On the way home from saying goodbye to my husband when he was going off to Iraq, our not even two month old daughter in the back seat, I was listening to a country station, and the song "If you're reading this" by Tim McGraw came on the radio and I was bawling my eyes out.  Not a week later, I heard another of Tim McGraw's songs on the radio called "My Little Girl" and was once again in tears from it.  And I will always get misty when I hear "Amazing Grace" as it was sung by my mother at both my grandfathers' funerals, and "That Old Rugged Cross" is also because of one of my grandfather's funerals.  

Music speaks so loudly in our lives.  It makes it hard for me to understand why people can limit what they listen to so much.  "I only listen to rock."  "I only like country."  "Only rap for me."  I will continue to give music a chance whenever a new artist comes about.  Not all new artists suck, but a lot of them do.  That doesn't mean I wont' keep listening.

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