Let the music speak

I have always been an avid fan of the comment "If only my brain would retain half the school knowledge that it does the song lyrics."

I don't really wish the terrible thought on myself of course. There is no better feeling in this world than turing the song that encompasses all of your thoughts up and letting it overtake you. We use music as an escape, and that is exactly what it should be. 

Everyone has that song, or perhaps a few. They mean so much to you, and for good reason. The lyrics were written for you. They speak mountains and they carry you through the hard nights. Some times we take for granted the power music has. 

I will never quite understand why people say they hate a song. How do you hate something so pure? Each song has a different meaning, each made for someone. To hate something of that magnitude, it is like hating emotion. Sure, some songs aren't going to be your taste. I get that. But to hate music seems stronger than hating another person. 

Just saying...

Tonight I found a new song that sang every word right at me. Its meaning captured my being. I've listened to it at least 30 times. 

That is what songs do to me. They draw me in. They take over. I need to know their every word. Feel their every note. For a brief moment I want to be the song because in that song I will no longer have to feel my pain.

Try this beauty out... yeah, I worked at a radio station. I know how to link to YouTube. It is Snow Patrol "You Could Be Happy"

You could be happy, I hope you are
You made me happier than I'd been by far
Somehow everything I own smells of you
And for the tiniest moment it's all not true
Do the things that you always wanted to
Without me there to hold you back, don't think, just do
More than anything I want to see you, girl
Take a glorious bite out of the whole world


For me this song has more than just one stable meaning. But it was everything I had been thinking in the past few days wrapped up into a little under three minutes of bliss. 

I chose these lyrics because they were the very first to stand out. See I have encountered a moment where someone said they held onto my smell. It was wonderful. To know you can stick around in someones mind just by your smell. He wore a vest around for a week. But in that moment he was sad. And so was I. We were sad for the same reason. For wanting one another. But we were sad apart. 

His last words hit me hard. He didn't want me to make a decision about my career based on him. I just wasn't good enough for him right then. My whole world, wrapped into that one conversation. 

I have spent quite some time in the past few years fighting with myself about my career. Trying to be the best, trying to be something big, something I approve of. I want to take a glorious bite out of the whole world. But along with this I recently learned that the whole world means taking a bite out of someone else too.

Never did I think you could have both, and I was set on having the career. Until I wasn't good enough for either. 

"You could be happy and I won't know

But you weren't happy the day I watched you go"

And then there is this. I was not happy. But that is why it is the first line in the song. I shouldn't have been happy when it happened. I am happy now and he probably doesn't know. It isn't because he is gone. I miss the friend I had in him. But I am happy because, like I have said before, some times happy is all you have left. And I'm in a good place. 

But none of this song is happy. It isn't supposed to be. Though by the end, I am happy. All of its words together make me feel joy. The last note leads me to hope. This is what songs should do. They tear down your emotion. From beginning to end they let you watch the story unfold in a different way. You are no longer living it but watching it. And right when you think you have to go back to being hurt, or happy, or whatever you were feeling before the song, they resolve it. 

I was not happy that day. Or the days that followed. But what this song says is that one day I will be happy. One day I will take my bite out of this world. He might not have wanted to stop me. The door closing behind me may have been the last thought of me in his mind. But that is the beauty of a song, for just a moment you are the world, and what you want to happen or want to feel is what it is. The song is you.