“Thank you for the music,
the songs I’m singing
Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing
Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty
What would life be?”
Music means everything to me. It’s a way for me to connect with people. It calms an overly hectic brain. It’s a release. A relaxation method. Solace. A mood controller. A trigger. A counsellor. A friend.
As a baby, I didn’t crawl.
Until I heard music.
We lived in an old house with a long hallway that spanned the front of the house to the back. My mum and I were alone. She had put me down at the back door so she could keep an eye on me while she was hanging up the washing. She got distracted. And then when she realised I was there by myself, she hurried back in to find me at the other end of the hallway, next to the radio. I was changing the station.
I’m still controlling the music.
My wife hates this. A lot.
I lord over the laptop/iPod/turntable/CD player, like the giant guarding the goose that lays golden eggs. I have been known to change the music if I don’t like what’s playing, or my mood wants something else. As you can imagine, this irritates her to no end.
It’s not that I’m selfish. Most of the time, I don’t even realise that I’m doing it. I just love music – my music – the stuff I want to hear.
It’s an obsession.
Music is the first thing I tune into. Even in a crowded room. Even when I’m socialising with friends. A song will come on and my attention immediately focuses on the music.
A wise friend told me that our brains focus on the most important piece of information, filtering out superfluous noise. So for instance, you are in a room. Someone is talking to you. Music is playing. A generator fires up in the distance. The air-conditioner is humming and buzzing away. Someone else is having a conversation in the background. The brain will filter out what it thinks it doesn’t need. For most people, this would be the music, the generator, the air-conditioner, and the background chatter, narrowing in on the person who is directly talking to you.
I am different.
I will 100% focus on the music and trash any other noise. Even when a friend is talking to me.
I realise this is rude, and I try really hard to focus on the person but the music is always there.
Always in the foreground.
I’d rather listen to music than talk to people.
I discovered the Beach Boys when I was 12. I borrowed their greatest hits cassette tape from the library, raced home, shut my bedroom door, put the tape into the player and turned the volume up. Loud. I pretended to be them – tennis racket as my guitar, hairbrush as a microphone. I finally felt as though I belonged. Music was me. It was inside of me. The real me.
I always wanted to be a rock star. But I can’t play an instrument. I can’t read music. I can’t sing. The moment I realised my dream would never come true was devastating.
It still is.
So instead, I craft playlists. In the 80s, I created mixed tapes. In the 90s, I made CDs. Now, I create specific playlists on Spotify to suit moods and genres. I spend a lot of time on these. It’s definitely a passion of mine. Hop on over to my Spotify account to check them out: https://open.spotify.com/user/aisha.lelic?si=9h3GZ5BiSpagJP0mDxMuog
Music doesn’t judge. I don’t have to be funny, witty or engaging. I don’t have to string words together to form intelligent sentences. Music takes me for who I am. Music is perfection.
When I was in year 8, my music teacher put on Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf March. We had to listen to the music and write a story — whatever came into our heads. Mine was about a horde of killer tomatoes. The tomatoes were angry. They had outgrown their greenhouse. They were cross that the greenhouse keeper kept them away from the natural elements of the sun and rain. So they formed a mob and busted out, determined to exact revenge on their captor.
I realised that day that music holds power. That it held, and still does, power over me.
Hunter S. Thompson sums this up perfectly:
“Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.”
I often feel as though the gas needle of life is on empty. But if I have the right music on, very loud, I can run endlessly.
What does music mean to you?