The lyrics are the veins and tissue of the breathing scalpel which prunes our excess. They cut and remove until we realize that identity is “not about what earthly things we've conquered or what our status may be” (Paulchissler). The music leads our bodies to a place they know about and desire, but cannot find. The scalpel leaves only the Truth: that our bodies business is the business of losing its corporeality. “It's about crumbling down to who we are and to what's in our soul” (Paul Chissler).
Or:
Song is about healing, about filling the gashes and cuts across our sensitive love centers, alleviating the pain but identifiable by its alien complexion; as a scar heals the skin, but never undoes the damage. Maybe music is “the process of healing and knowing that the pain and the memories that come with moving on are what it takes to get to the point where you are over something” (Rebecca).
Or, because humorous commentary on music may be the best explanation of them all:
“Song is about "hanging out" with a taken woman and not getting caught (cosmos1957).
Oh, this blog. I love music (current: “White Blank Page”, Mumford & Sons—can you lie next to her and give her your heart as well as your body? Can you lie next to her and confess your love, your love as well as your folly?) and I wanted this one to be right. But I should say something, here—I lied to you all on this one. All of this?: “We have big hopes, always, foolish as we are: this is true of relationships more than anything else. "Konstantine" talks about the distance between loving someone and being good for them, wanting to understand someone and actually doing so, the chasm between goodness and those awful things we want because we're selfish and that's how we work.” I was talking about Gab, here, the theatre guy from my timeline. That’s what I was crying about: I’d watched him be with someone else, someone I knew he didn’t love and didn’t love him, and I never expected that to change. Here’s something to make you not want to look at me for the rest of forever: I am not the pretty girl. For all my youth, this has been true. But there’s one thing you can believe for sure. I’m the safe bet. You don’t have to risk me running because I’m religious so I won’t cheat and because I’m not hot enough to make most men give chase. I’m sorry if this makes you feel weird. I actually genuinely am sorry.
So what, then? Can I lie next to him and give up my body as well as my heart when some days I feel like my body is less an offering and more a burden?—can I acknowledge that I am a fool, a desperate and deluded fool?—“lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole lie.” Some people think that last word’s “life” and not lie. I prefer lie. It feels more honest to me, if you’ll pardon the irony. And now my iTunes has moved on to “Little Lion Man”, just as I’m reading Wilson’s blog for this post, which makes sense—because I do the stupid girlfriend things too, and I like it when people put this kind of information out there. Here’s something to leave you on, though…sometimes, I look at other girls’ asses as well. Don’t feel bad. 12:15.
The music blog was one of my favorites, since music is my favorite thing. Like Martha Lee Anne, I downloaded a lot of the songs I didn't know and listened to them.
One that I remember really liking was the one Wilson picked, "Little Lion Man" The line, "and it was your heart on the line" gave me chills and reminded me of so many past relationships . Some where I had been the victim and some where I had been the one with seemingly little regard to another's heart. So thanks Wilson for that choice.
Now, FML (haha) I'm going to talk about the last song I listened to which is "Evenflow" by Pearl Jam. I figured it was was worthy to put here because of two things 1. I have no idea what Eddie Vedder is saying. 2. There are so many memories I have about this...much like this class
I know that ol Eddie says "Evenfloooooowwww" and blah blah blah blah pillow made of concrete? Or something. Either way, I sing something that sounds like another language everytime it comes on...and it's fun. And I don't care that I don't know the words.
And that's how my life is. I don't have all the answers. Sometimes I will pretend to and other times I will just laugh at the stupidity of my pretending to have all of the answers. This is fine with me. This class has shown me that it is ok with most of you too.
The memories to this song crack me up as well. My best friend and I will be in her Sentra (not the coolest of rides) just babbling at the top of our lungs until the chorus. Then we are both screaming, "EVENFLOOOOWWW"
This is how my relationships are. We can do our own, crazy things but we always come back (in a big way) to each other and our common ground.
This was by far my favorite blog opportunity. I was recently talking to a dear friend who recently married another dear friend. We have discovered that we are almost the same person (except he has a beard and can play a mighty fine bass), and so he was curious to address the similarity of how we love and feel love in return. I couldn’t answer him at first, because the list to choose from was so broad. I felt I wanted and did all of them quite well. Then again, I was recently singled at the age of 22 and no prospects. Perhaps I was not doing as hot as I thought.
A few days later though, there were two moments in which I felt love like never before. Two moments, given to me as thoughtlessly as could be that proved to me I was not what I thought.
The first was after a trail run with two friends, we’ll call then Nikkers and Peter Pan. Nikkers had taken to writing me love letters and leaving them at my door, and so I knew that she loved me, but this was something I was immune to almost. It seemed so intuitive to write down a feeling. But Peter Pan…oh how he stole my heart when he sang to us in the car. G-L-O-R-I-A GLOOOOOOOOORIA! My heart sort of did this swelling thing…like you might feel during a myocardial infarction, or some questionable gastrointestinal activity. But this. This was love. I had thought that love was an act of the will, something with an itinerary and flowers and secret picnics and talking until you couldn’t breathe. He didn’t even know me well. But I loved him. For once, it didn’t bother me that someone didn’t know me. All that mattered was the words he sang.
Music is my love language.
The second involved one of you, and so I hesitate to credit it. What’s the point? I’m transparent enough. That’s the point. Suffice it to say that my writing is me and acknowledging my writing is like proposing. It was confusing at first, but then quite like my life would never be the same.
I have been standing here all along. It changes things when people look.
I made a playlist of all of the songs you guys posted. I listened to it while I wrote and studied the next week. If music is my love language – and it is – then introducing me to new sounds and reminding me of old ones is like holding my hand. Maybe it means something, maybe it turns into nothing. Maybe “you’re mine and that’s it, forever,” or I’ll never leave you, at least until morning. It doesn’t matter – its all heady to me.
Thanks especially to Martha Lee Anne and paulschissler for the new and kmp0020 and Courtney Paige for the old.
Where would we be without that wonderful thing called music? Music is my life. I kind of think it is for all of us(goes hand in hand with being a English major?) One thing that I like to do is pick up random CD’s or playlists on my IPod that I created years, months, or weeks ago and try to remember the kind of mood that I was in when I put all those songs together. Music has such healing power I don’t know what in the world I would do without it? Like those playlists it is cool to look back at what I posted four months ago and see what was going on. So much has changed in my life since I posted that song, but I remember now what I was going through then. The since of sadness that that song brings to me whenever I hear it. I love how music is a way to connect us all. Just looking over people’s old blogs I see so many artists that I love Billy Joel, Damien Rice, The Beatles and so many more. It is so funny to me how I can go through my day listening to songs and that there are so many people out there who have the same love of artists that I do. It is just so cool how we all come together no matter what are backgrounds are or beliefs, I love how music can bring not just a class but the whole world together in some way. I loved how some of yall said you downloaded songs after seeing them. It just is another way that music brings us together.
This was a blog I was really excited about. Music means something to almost everyone, and there is always that one song we just can't live without. Yet almost all of us wrote something about how it was hard choosing ONE, just ONE song to write about. Because really we could write about 10, 20, 30 different songs that mean something to us. But maybe it was that choice, that hand picking of just one of our many favorites that says the most about us, (at least says the most about us at that particular moment, everything changes in a moment). Like many others I chose a song that led back to my family and childhood, and continued to mean something to me today (like kmp's You are My Sunshine, something my mother would also sing to me). Yet for some reason I found myself writing historical facts about the Beatles before writing why the song meant so much to me. As if I was conditioned from years of English classes to "properly introduce" my topic. Why couldn't I just trust that others would relate to my nostalgic homesick reminiscence? Others chose songs about heartbreak, and love, and break ups. How these songs relate to our fear, our pain, our subconscious, our guilt and our self-loathing. And they wrote about how they hurt people, and people hurt them, and these songs said it all, only a few rhyming lyrics and a beat said it all. And still others chose songs about human nature in general, about simple truths of life and love. And they wrote about things they witnessed and ways they've acted and why, why, why, do we do this? Then I realized sorting through all these blogs, reading and relating to each of them, is like choosing just one song to write about. I can't do it. I want to write about them all. I want to tell my stories, experiences, and memories that each one of them make me think of. The music blog made me see the magic in blogging, we can't all write about it all, but we can each chose something to write about and read the rest.
I wish I had an ipod to walk around with everywhere I go, so like other people that do that, I could constantly pretend that I'm in a music video. Not that I don't do that already, I just play different songs in my head to match the mood or environment that I'm in (if you have not tried imagining that you're in a music video while just walking around, then you must try it because I assure you that you will feel very cool)- I should aim to watch less music videos so that I don't look like some whack-job walking on the concourse.
Anyways, reading through everyones' blogs it's so blatantly clear how dependent we all are on having music in our lives. The emotions music, especially live music, evokes in our bodies is unmatched by any other sensory product. Songs really are the scars/pauses in our life that we timeline our past with, some cause us to remember happy moments, others make us hit the stop button and switch CDs.
I think for this music blog we should've all written a song, a lyrical composition of our perceptions through this semester....or whatever you wanted to write a song about.
I wish I had a soundtrack to my life. I agree with Paul, I always imagine myself with music behind me when I do things. There are even songs where I imagine what I think those songs would be best used for. For example, the song Dirty Woman by Pink Floyd would be the perfect song for a runway fashion show. I even have it choreographed in my head exactly what I would have the models doing and how they would walk. I also wish I had music playing when I did mundane things like cooking dinner, or waking up. How cool would it be if I had the Dexter theme song playing as I got ready in the morning? Or if there was dramatic music playing while I slice and dice in the kitchen? But now I'm rambling. I remember when we did this blog. I went through the responses and at every one of them, I was constantly like, oh, I like that song, I like that one too, that's one of my favorites! Oh, that one's so good! And this was when we were really starting to be honest and open to each other for the first time. It was refreshing to not walk into a silent classroom of students feeling awkward, not saying a word to each other. I was starting to see how beautiful everyone is. I had decided this was my favorite class. Music has so much meaning to me because like the soundtrack assignment, I connect different events and people in my life to different songs. Now, when I hear any of the songs you all mentioned, I will think of you, and what we went through together.
As I sit here and try to express my feelings for music in some coherent fashion yet again, I'm listening to the CruxShadows songs I stole off of one of my best friends' Droid (we're elitists, we don't do the iPod thing), trying to get him out of my head, trying to forget all the trips back from the lake singing to these songs together. And I think I've stumbled upon the crux of my ongoing love for music. It's not just the notes, chords, lyrics, rhythm and/or the way the keys and strings feel under my fingers. It's all of that and more. It's the feelings it evokes and the memories it calls up. It's all of this rolled into one. I think part of that is because when someone makes music - not just sings or plays and instrument but truly invests themselves in the creation - they give us a little piece of their soul. And that's what makes it so hard to pick a single song - it's like picking my favourite person or feeling. I can't do it.
The art we love says something about our hidden selves.
That’s what I learned from this blog. We love pop music because it’s about love and loss, and sometimes we can’t say what we really mean. How many of us wrote about love in our blogs about music?
“some might call me a love muffin, so I chose a song which discusses a relationship.” - Ardell
“songs for each person that I love - and sometimes for those I’m not so fond of.” - Trillium
“falling into a picture in which the world ends and your with your love, someone you love so completely that it's ok that the world's ending because your with her.” – Nick
I could probably quote 9 out of 10 of us, but the point is made.
One of my favorite quotes from Almost Famous (one of my top 5 favorite movies) is, “great art is about conflict and pain and guilt and longing and love disguised as sex, and sex disguised as love.” I’m not sure that this quote is 100 percent true, but we seem to love the music that reflects on that idea. More than from the first blog, I learned about our humanness from this blog. I love that we can have twenty some-odd people talk about their experiences. Sometimes they can lie, or they can “tell it slant” and Dr. P so often says, but even in those moments, even when they disguise what they truly mean, there’s a truth to be found there. Every time we wrote, I learned something new about myself. And I learned something new about each of you. Music, it teaches me about myself, and sometimes I can use it to teach others about myself.
This blog was one of my favorites. I might be alone in this, but I often put music to certain parts of my day; for example, pre-tests playlists, workout playlists, walk to class playlists, and then of course Barry White gets his own playlist for other times. Like every other blog, I found that I was moved by every comment on the board. A few of these quotes really hit me hard as to how others hear music and what it means to their lives.
"Naturally, I think about the generally dissatisfying state of my life everyday and how I'm probably never going to get anywhere with an English degree, how futile writing is when I watch the news reporting America's last atrocities--but I still can dream." - Annmarie
"I just remember being refreshed by the way that the song captures the loneliness that we all hide, and I remember my soul being filled and rejuvenated by the idea that people are connected even in their pain" - Josh
Isn't this what it is all about, learning from our classmates responses regarding their pain or sadness, which really teach us about people and why they are the way they are.
Here's bright eyed little Robert ready to blog!! YAY!
That was me, back in September. But thanks to Nutrisystem, I've lost 43 pounds and can do 100 pushups in twenty minutes!
Nah, but for real, I think my junior year of college was the best time I've ever had in my life. I got in more bar fights, met more women, and got more drunk with friends watching awesome bands than in my entire existence. My whole life at that point was a Lynyrd Skynyrd or Allman Brothers Band album. The only thing that would've made it better was jumping into a Jeep Wrangler on the run from the cops into the sticks or something. Around Wire Road, that kind of thing. I miss junior year so much. I was unstoppable.
Damn, I half-assed this one too. That's a shame, too, since I'm in a fraternity dedicated to music and its ability to uplift and empower people and bring people together in ways that words sometimes can't.
" Music isn't just a pleasure, a transient satisfaction. It's a need, a deep hunger; and when the music is right, it's joy. Love. A foretaste of heaven. A comfort in grief. Is it too much to think that perhaps God speaks to us sometimes through music? How, then, could I be so ungrateful as to refuse the message?" - Orson Scott Card
Card is my favorite author, and while maybe Sci-fi authors aren't as prestigious as the Dickens' and Vonneguts of the world, his words in this sense are no less true or poignant. I'm not a man of faith, per se, but that doesn't mean I don't have faith in something, and that something is music. It's the food of love, and I for one will never lose my appetite for it.
P.S. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjjtivtJjHw I'm down there every week. Thanks for singing along with me.
After reading some of the old post, one particular point stuck out to me, "This song has become so many people’s lives" (Martha Lee Anne). It reminded me of a point I was trying to make in class related to "Tesla Matters," that music influences our lives to point we don't realize. The way we handle situations, dress, talk, act, and etc. Each subject of every song we can just about relate it to some point in our lives or create our lives from it. All of this is a result from consciously and unconsciously listening to the words, and these words make us feel a certain way or react a certain way. I know this is true just from reading everyone's old post. Now, I might be crazy for believing this (and I'm sure I'm not the only one)but, not only is music influenced from different situation in people lives but they shape people lives everyday, for it is one of the most popular elements of our everyday lives...if that makes sense?
Sorry guys, my blog wasn't up to par that week either. The Lion King soundtrack really is my favorite though. But not really because it has some deep spiritual meaning behind it, but because it reminds me of my dad- we used to watch The Lion King at least twice a week when I was little.
And my apologies on this second part of the music blog as well, it's going to be bad. Really bad.
I can't get my thoughts together when it comes to music. I know how much I love it but in all reality, I don't think I truly know what good music is. I'm totally a part of the Lil Wayne hype (thank God he's finally out of prison)and I'm a Taylor Swift wannabe.
I listened to all of the music that was in the original blog and wow! I think that is what good music is.
Can anyone help a sister out and suggest something to knock me off my socks and help me forget all about T Swift and Weezy?
Looking back, I can agree that music does hold deeply personal qualities. Like our soundtracking exercises, it is very interesting to see how parts of our lives definitively have a "song" physically and metaphysically tied to them. For instance, I can recall the old Chinese songs my mother used to sing when I was small. When she sings them now, I feel that I am physically transported into that moment of my childhood.
I'll be honest. I thought that soundtracking was stupid and that lives should not be "defined" or "held" by anything (color, music, what will you). So, this admission is pretty big. My head is still too big to fit in the door, though.
The song that means something most to you. I remember feeling sick to my stomach. Sharing my favorite music with you? Online? With a class of people I didn’t know? How personal! How embarrassing! Would you guys have thought I was a poser if I chose a song off of Linkin Park’s Meteora CD or off of The Killer’s Hot Fuss CD? Would I have been too predictable if I chose a song by Taylor Swift? Or too cheesy if I talked about mine and my boyfriend’s song? So I played it safe. I talked about my relationship with by mom and the song “You Are My Sunshine” and then my relationship with my sister and “Closer To Fine” by the Indigo Girls. But I kept it surface level. I feel like I owe you guys more than that.
I am a momma’s girl. My younger sister is also my best friend. They’re the two constants in my life and when you move so many times, it just kind of happens I guess. I honestly debated going to community college and living at home because the thought of my sister and my mom spending so much time together without me made me sick. For the past three years, it had just been the three of us, and I didn’t want to be left out. I didn’t even go to Mizzou because I was scared that if I went to school an hour away that it would be too easy to come home and I would end up being “that” girl. I hate “that” girl. I needed to go far away, like I’m talking ten hours far away, for me to be able to go to school at an actual university. Pathetic? Maybe. But I think that’s one of the real reasons why I thought to choose that particular song, because it’s a song she only sang to me.
As for “Closer To Fine,” I think I chose this because it takes me back to a time when we were actually a normal family. Isn’t that a weird term, “normal family”? Is there such a thing? Probably not, but I do miss the family that we were.
I loved when Trillium said “songs that represent different periods in my life, and songs for each person that I love - and sometimes for those I’m not so fond of.” It’s so true. Before writing this post, I went back and listened to all of the songs you guys wrote about. I added a bunch of them to my iTunes library, and every time I hear them I’ll think of you.
There is that one song out there for everyone, you just have to find it. I am sure most of us had a hard time narrowing down our choices because I can say I have many favorite songs that mean things and that hold memories for me.
“Without music life would be a mistake. “ ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche "I just remember being refreshed by the way that the song captures the loneliness that we all hide, and I remember my soul being filled and rejuvenated by the idea that people are connected even in their pain" – Josh When you are walking on campus, notice how many people you see with headphones on and are in their own little world. Music is our way to cope and stay sane in this crazy life that we are trying to create and live. There is nothing like finding those lyrics that seem to be telling your life story. It is such an unreal feeling. A lot of times it can take your situation to a whole different level. Music is soothing, it is exciting, it is true…it is our lives.
Tonight, pretend you’re an acrobat, and you’re being thrown on top of the world. Do you still wish you were beautiful? Cause you will, will always be beautiful. Tonight, pretend you’re a cigarette and you’re being smoked by a picturesque girl. Do you still wish you were beautiful? Cause you will, will always be beautiful. You will, will always be beautiful. You will, will always be beautiful. Will always be beautiful. Will always be beautiful. Will always be beautiful.
Right now, I wish I was a cigarette being smoked. Breathed in. Inhaled. Absorbed. Swirling past someone’s heart and into their lungs, but instead of staining them black, I’d like to be the kind of smoke that warms but doesn’t burn. Smoke that fills. Smoke that stays tucked in behind jackets, and skin, and breath. I’d like for someone to consume me.
Right now, I’d like to be an acrobat. I wish I wasn’t so easy to figure out. I wish I could float above it all. Effortlessly floating in black on top of the world where everything is hidden in that veil. I’d like to pretend that I’m not so obvious. I’d like to pretend that you don’t know me, and that the searching out has only begun.
Right now, I feel beautiful.
Right now, I feel I could be thrown on top of the world, I could be consumed, I could be found out.
And to think, that music could make me feel all of that.
I really appreciate a venue where we can all address music as something more than notes and melodies. My senior year of high school I thought I was SUCH a bad-ass. I was dating a guy at Birmingham Southern. He was an English major and also in a band. Needless to say, whatever he said, I ate it up. I was so naive. We were sitting on his couch, talking about poetry and I suggested that one could think of lyrics as the poetry of our generation. He laughed. Of course, at the time I turned beet red, and as my opinions got thrown out the door so did my fight. But now, older and wiser...and having had my opinions thrown out the door many times more...I really don't care whether my boyfriend or my poetry professors say its a wrong opinion. What we have all said here is what I think semester after semester in the system makes us forget...the reason we first loved literature in the first place. Music has the ability to capture basic human emotion and magnify it until it is so completely beyond us that it acts as a unifying element. It draws people together and helps us to find something deeper running through ourselves. As Josh said, "I just remember being refreshed by the way that the song captures the loneliness we all hide". Through music we feel more connected to ourselves, and once we get to that very core, the most human part of ourselves, we find we begin relating once again to each other.
So much has been said about music, I am afraid my words will utterly fail at grasping the beauty of music. It's just that I am not that much into music. GASP! Yes, it's true. Don't get me wrong, I have my favorite band, I go to concerts, etc. But I have never been that much of a musical person. I can't play an instrument (unless you count the nose...ba da chhh). I don't write lyrics. I don't listen to that many different bands. Basically, I am musically illiterate. But I still feel it. It still wraps me in my arms when I desperately need something to hold on to. It still gets injected into my vein when I am fiending. It is still there, sometimes fleeting but always tangible. And though I may not be as musically adept as some of the others in the class, I know that without it, the silence will strangle us. And I'm not ready to be strangled just yet.
The lyrics are the veins and tissue of the breathing scalpel which prunes our excess. They cut and remove until we realize that identity is “not about what earthly things we've conquered or what our status may be” (Paulchissler). The music leads our bodies to a place they know about and desire, but cannot find. The scalpel leaves only the Truth: that our bodies business is the business of losing its corporeality. “It's about crumbling down to who we are and to what's in our soul” (Paul Chissler).
ReplyDeleteOr:
Song is about healing, about filling the gashes and cuts across our sensitive love centers, alleviating the pain but identifiable by its alien complexion; as a scar heals the skin, but never undoes the damage. Maybe music is “the process of healing and knowing that the pain and the memories that come with moving on are what it takes to get to the point where you are over something” (Rebecca).
Or, because humorous commentary on music may be the best explanation of them all:
“Song is about "hanging out" with a taken woman and not getting caught (cosmos1957).
Oh, this blog. I love music (current: “White Blank Page”, Mumford & Sons—can you lie next to her and give her your heart as well as your body? Can you lie next to her and confess your love, your love as well as your folly?) and I wanted this one to be right. But I should say something, here—I lied to you all on this one. All of this?: “We have big hopes, always, foolish as we are: this is true of relationships more than anything else. "Konstantine" talks about the distance between loving someone and being good for them, wanting to understand someone and actually doing so, the chasm between goodness and those awful things we want because we're selfish and that's how we work.” I was talking about Gab, here, the theatre guy from my timeline. That’s what I was crying about: I’d watched him be with someone else, someone I knew he didn’t love and didn’t love him, and I never expected that to change. Here’s something to make you not want to look at me for the rest of forever: I am not the pretty girl. For all my youth, this has been true. But there’s one thing you can believe for sure. I’m the safe bet. You don’t have to risk me running because I’m religious so I won’t cheat and because I’m not hot enough to make most men give chase. I’m sorry if this makes you feel weird. I actually genuinely am sorry.
ReplyDeleteSo what, then? Can I lie next to him and give up my body as well as my heart when some days I feel like my body is less an offering and more a burden?—can I acknowledge that I am a fool, a desperate and deluded fool?—“lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole lie.” Some people think that last word’s “life” and not lie. I prefer lie. It feels more honest to me, if you’ll pardon the irony. And now my iTunes has moved on to “Little Lion Man”, just as I’m reading Wilson’s blog for this post, which makes sense—because I do the stupid girlfriend things too, and I like it when people put this kind of information out there. Here’s something to leave you on, though…sometimes, I look at other girls’ asses as well. Don’t feel bad. 12:15.
The music blog was one of my favorites, since music is my favorite thing. Like Martha Lee Anne, I downloaded a lot of the songs I didn't know and listened to them.
ReplyDeleteOne that I remember really liking was the one Wilson picked, "Little Lion Man" The line, "and it was your heart on the line" gave me chills and reminded me of so many past relationships . Some where I had been the victim and some where I had been the one with seemingly little regard to another's heart. So thanks Wilson for that choice.
Now, FML (haha) I'm going to talk about the last song I listened to which is "Evenflow" by Pearl Jam. I figured it was was worthy to put here because of two things 1. I have no idea what Eddie Vedder is saying. 2. There are so many memories I have about this...much like this class
I know that ol Eddie says "Evenfloooooowwww" and blah blah blah blah pillow made of concrete? Or something. Either way, I sing something that sounds like another language everytime it comes on...and it's fun. And I don't care that I don't know the words.
And that's how my life is. I don't have all the answers. Sometimes I will pretend to and other times I will just laugh at the stupidity of my pretending to have all of the answers. This is fine with me. This class has shown me that it is ok with most of you too.
The memories to this song crack me up as well. My best friend and I will be in her Sentra (not the coolest of rides) just babbling at the top of our lungs until the chorus. Then we are both screaming, "EVENFLOOOOWWW"
This is how my relationships are. We can do our own, crazy things but we always come back (in a big way) to each other and our common ground.
Maybe that's how we are in this class too?
This was by far my favorite blog opportunity. I was recently talking to a dear friend who recently married another dear friend. We have discovered that we are almost the same person (except he has a beard and can play a mighty fine bass), and so he was curious to address the similarity of how we love and feel love in return. I couldn’t answer him at first, because the list to choose from was so broad. I felt I wanted and did all of them quite well. Then again, I was recently singled at the age of 22 and no prospects. Perhaps I was not doing as hot as I thought.
ReplyDeleteA few days later though, there were two moments in which I felt love like never before. Two moments, given to me as thoughtlessly as could be that proved to me I was not what I thought.
The first was after a trail run with two friends, we’ll call then Nikkers and Peter Pan. Nikkers had taken to writing me love letters and leaving them at my door, and so I knew that she loved me, but this was something I was immune to almost. It seemed so intuitive to write down a feeling. But Peter Pan…oh how he stole my heart when he sang to us in the car. G-L-O-R-I-A GLOOOOOOOOORIA! My heart sort of did this swelling thing…like you might feel during a myocardial infarction, or some questionable gastrointestinal activity. But this. This was love. I had thought that love was an act of the will, something with an itinerary and flowers and secret picnics and talking until you couldn’t breathe. He didn’t even know me well. But I loved him. For once, it didn’t bother me that someone didn’t know me. All that mattered was the words he sang.
Music is my love language.
The second involved one of you, and so I hesitate to credit it. What’s the point? I’m transparent enough. That’s the point. Suffice it to say that my writing is me and acknowledging my writing is like proposing. It was confusing at first, but then quite like my life would never be the same.
I have been standing here all along. It changes things when people look.
“And another damn thing– ... ”
ReplyDeleteI made a playlist of all of the songs you guys posted. I listened to it while I wrote and studied the next week. If music is my love language – and it is – then introducing me to new sounds and reminding me of old ones is like holding my hand. Maybe it means something, maybe it turns into nothing. Maybe “you’re mine and that’s it, forever,” or I’ll never leave you, at least until morning. It doesn’t matter – its all heady to me.
Thanks especially to Martha Lee Anne and paulschissler for the new and kmp0020 and Courtney Paige for the old.
Where would we be without that wonderful thing called music? Music is my life. I kind of think it is for all of us(goes hand in hand with being a English major?) One thing that I like to do is pick up random CD’s or playlists on my IPod that I created years, months, or weeks ago and try to remember the kind of mood that I was in when I put all those songs together. Music has such healing power I don’t know what in the world I would do without it? Like those playlists it is cool to look back at what I posted four months ago and see what was going on. So much has changed in my life since I posted that song, but I remember now what I was going through then. The since of sadness that that song brings to me whenever I hear it.
ReplyDeleteI love how music is a way to connect us all. Just looking over people’s old blogs I see so many artists that I love Billy Joel, Damien Rice, The Beatles and so many more. It is so funny to me how I can go through my day listening to songs and that there are so many people out there who have the same love of artists that I do. It is just so cool how we all come together no matter what are backgrounds are or beliefs, I love how music can bring not just a class but the whole world together in some way. I loved how some of yall said you downloaded songs after seeing them. It just is another way that music brings us together.
This was a blog I was really excited about. Music means something to almost everyone, and there is always that one song we just can't live without. Yet almost all of us wrote something about how it was hard choosing ONE, just ONE song to write about. Because really we could write about 10, 20, 30 different songs that mean something to us. But maybe it was that choice, that hand picking of just one of our many favorites that says the most about us, (at least says the most about us at that particular moment, everything changes in a moment). Like many others I chose a song that led back to my family and childhood, and continued to mean something to me today (like kmp's You are My Sunshine, something my mother would also sing to me). Yet for some reason I found myself writing historical facts about the Beatles before writing why the song meant so much to me. As if I was conditioned from years of English classes to "properly introduce" my topic. Why couldn't I just trust that others would relate to my nostalgic homesick reminiscence? Others chose songs about heartbreak, and love, and break ups. How these songs relate to our fear, our pain, our subconscious, our guilt and our self-loathing. And they wrote about how they hurt people, and people hurt them, and these songs said it all, only a few rhyming lyrics and a beat said it all. And still others chose songs about human nature in general, about simple truths of life and love. And they wrote about things they witnessed and ways they've acted and why, why, why, do we do this?
ReplyDeleteThen I realized sorting through all these blogs, reading and relating to each of them, is like choosing just one song to write about. I can't do it. I want to write about them all. I want to tell my stories, experiences, and memories that each one of them make me think of. The music blog made me see the magic in blogging, we can't all write about it all, but we can each chose something to write about and read the rest.
I wish I had an ipod to walk around with everywhere I go, so like other people that do that, I could constantly pretend that I'm in a music video. Not that I don't do that already, I just play different songs in my head to match the mood or environment that I'm in (if you have not tried imagining that you're in a music video while just walking around, then you must try it because I assure you that you will feel very cool)- I should aim to watch less music videos so that I don't look like some whack-job walking on the concourse.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, reading through everyones' blogs it's so blatantly clear how dependent we all are on having music in our lives. The emotions music, especially live music, evokes in our bodies is unmatched by any other sensory product. Songs really are the scars/pauses in our life that we timeline our past with, some cause us to remember happy moments, others make us hit the stop button and switch CDs.
I think for this music blog we should've all written a song, a lyrical composition of our perceptions through this semester....or whatever you wanted to write a song about.
I wish I had a soundtrack to my life. I agree with Paul, I always imagine myself with music behind me when I do things. There are even songs where I imagine what I think those songs would be best used for. For example, the song Dirty Woman by Pink Floyd would be the perfect song for a runway fashion show. I even have it choreographed in my head exactly what I would have the models doing and how they would walk. I also wish I had music playing when I did mundane things like cooking dinner, or waking up. How cool would it be if I had the Dexter theme song playing as I got ready in the morning? Or if there was dramatic music playing while I slice and dice in the kitchen? But now I'm rambling.
ReplyDeleteI remember when we did this blog. I went through the responses and at every one of them, I was constantly like, oh, I like that song, I like that one too, that's one of my favorites! Oh, that one's so good! And this was when we were really starting to be honest and open to each other for the first time. It was refreshing to not walk into a silent classroom of students feeling awkward, not saying a word to each other. I was starting to see how beautiful everyone is. I had decided this was my favorite class.
Music has so much meaning to me because like the soundtrack assignment, I connect different events and people in my life to different songs. Now, when I hear any of the songs you all mentioned, I will think of you, and what we went through together.
As I sit here and try to express my feelings for music in some coherent fashion yet again, I'm listening to the CruxShadows songs I stole off of one of my best friends' Droid (we're elitists, we don't do the iPod thing), trying to get him out of my head, trying to forget all the trips back from the lake singing to these songs together. And I think I've stumbled upon the crux of my ongoing love for music. It's not just the notes, chords, lyrics, rhythm and/or the way the keys and strings feel under my fingers. It's all of that and more. It's the feelings it evokes and the memories it calls up. It's all of this rolled into one. I think part of that is because when someone makes music - not just sings or plays and instrument but truly invests themselves in the creation - they give us a little piece of their soul. And that's what makes it so hard to pick a single song - it's like picking my favourite person or feeling. I can't do it.
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ReplyDeleteThe art we love says something about our hidden selves.
ReplyDeleteThat’s what I learned from this blog. We love pop music because it’s about love and loss, and sometimes we can’t say what we really mean. How many of us wrote about love in our blogs about music?
“some might call me a love muffin, so I chose a song which discusses a relationship.” - Ardell
“songs for each person that I love - and sometimes for those I’m not so fond of.” - Trillium
“falling into a picture in which the world ends and your with your love, someone you love so completely that it's ok that the world's ending because your with her.” – Nick
I could probably quote 9 out of 10 of us, but the point is made.
One of my favorite quotes from Almost Famous (one of my top 5 favorite movies) is, “great art is about conflict and pain and guilt and longing and love disguised as sex, and sex disguised as love.” I’m not sure that this quote is 100 percent true, but we seem to love the music that reflects on that idea. More than from the first blog, I learned about our humanness from this blog. I love that we can have twenty some-odd people talk about their experiences. Sometimes they can lie, or they can “tell it slant” and Dr. P so often says, but even in those moments, even when they disguise what they truly mean, there’s a truth to be found there. Every time we wrote, I learned something new about myself. And I learned something new about each of you. Music, it teaches me about myself, and sometimes I can use it to teach others about myself.
This blog was one of my favorites. I might be alone in this, but I often put music to certain parts of my day; for example, pre-tests playlists, workout playlists, walk to class playlists, and then of course Barry White gets his own playlist for other times. Like every other blog, I found that I was moved by every comment on the board. A few of these quotes really hit me hard as to how others hear music and what it means to their lives.
ReplyDelete"Naturally, I think about the generally dissatisfying state of my life everyday and how I'm probably never going to get anywhere with an English degree, how futile writing is when I watch the news reporting America's last atrocities--but I still can dream." - Annmarie
"I just remember being refreshed by the way that the song captures the loneliness that we all hide, and I remember my soul being filled and rejuvenated by the idea that people are connected even in their pain" - Josh
Isn't this what it is all about, learning from our classmates responses regarding their pain or sadness, which really teach us about people and why they are the way they are.
Here's bright eyed little Robert ready to blog!! YAY!
ReplyDeleteThat was me, back in September. But thanks to Nutrisystem, I've lost 43 pounds and can do 100 pushups in twenty minutes!
Nah, but for real, I think my junior year of college was the best time I've ever had in my life. I got in more bar fights, met more women, and got more drunk with friends watching awesome bands than in my entire existence. My whole life at that point was a Lynyrd Skynyrd or Allman Brothers Band album. The only thing that would've made it better was jumping into a Jeep Wrangler on the run from the cops into the sticks or something. Around Wire Road, that kind of thing. I miss junior year so much. I was unstoppable.
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ReplyDeleteDamn, I half-assed this one too. That's a shame, too, since I'm in a fraternity dedicated to music and its ability to uplift and empower people and bring people together in ways that words sometimes can't.
ReplyDelete" Music isn't just a pleasure, a transient satisfaction. It's a need, a deep hunger; and when the music is right, it's joy. Love. A foretaste of heaven. A comfort in grief. Is it too much to think that perhaps God speaks to us sometimes through music? How, then, could I be so ungrateful as to refuse the message?" - Orson Scott Card
Card is my favorite author, and while maybe Sci-fi authors aren't as prestigious as the Dickens' and Vonneguts of the world, his words in this sense are no less true or poignant. I'm not a man of faith, per se, but that doesn't mean I don't have faith in something, and that something is music. It's the food of love, and I for one will never lose my appetite for it.
P.S. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjjtivtJjHw
I'm down there every week. Thanks for singing along with me.
P.P.S. : http://www.29-95.com/time-suck/story/bobby-mcferrin-fucks-your-mind
After reading some of the old post, one particular point stuck out to me, "This song has become so many people’s lives" (Martha Lee Anne). It reminded me of a point I was trying to make in class related to "Tesla Matters," that music influences our lives to point we don't realize. The way we handle situations, dress, talk, act, and etc. Each subject of every song we can just about relate it to some point in our lives or create our lives from it. All of this is a result from consciously and unconsciously listening to the words, and these words make us feel a certain way or react a certain way. I know this is true just from reading everyone's old post. Now, I might be crazy for believing this (and I'm sure I'm not the only one)but, not only is music influenced from different situation in people lives but they shape people lives everyday, for it is one of the most popular elements of our everyday lives...if that makes sense?
ReplyDeleteSorry guys, my blog wasn't up to par that week either. The Lion King soundtrack really is my favorite though. But not really because it has some deep spiritual meaning behind it, but because it reminds me of my dad- we used to watch The Lion King at least twice a week when I was little.
ReplyDeleteAnd my apologies on this second part of the music blog as well, it's going to be bad. Really bad.
I can't get my thoughts together when it comes to music. I know how much I love it but in all reality, I don't think I truly know what good music is. I'm totally a part of the Lil Wayne hype (thank God he's finally out of prison)and I'm a Taylor Swift wannabe.
I listened to all of the music that was in the original blog and wow! I think that is what good music is.
Can anyone help a sister out and suggest something to knock me off my socks and help me forget all about T Swift and Weezy?
"You are my sunshine."
ReplyDeleteLooking back, I can agree that music does hold deeply personal qualities. Like our soundtracking exercises, it is very interesting to see how parts of our lives definitively have a "song" physically and metaphysically tied to them. For instance, I can recall the old Chinese songs my mother used to sing when I was small. When she sings them now, I feel that I am physically transported into that moment of my childhood.
I'll be honest. I thought that soundtracking was stupid and that lives should not be "defined" or "held" by anything (color, music, what will you). So, this admission is pretty big. My head is still too big to fit in the door, though.
The song that means something most to you. I remember feeling sick to my stomach. Sharing my favorite music with you? Online? With a class of people I didn’t know? How personal! How embarrassing! Would you guys have thought I was a poser if I chose a song off of Linkin Park’s Meteora CD or off of The Killer’s Hot Fuss CD? Would I have been too predictable if I chose a song by Taylor Swift? Or too cheesy if I talked about mine and my boyfriend’s song? So I played it safe. I talked about my relationship with by mom and the song “You Are My Sunshine” and then my relationship with my sister and “Closer To Fine” by the Indigo Girls. But I kept it surface level. I feel like I owe you guys more than that.
ReplyDeleteI am a momma’s girl. My younger sister is also my best friend. They’re the two constants in my life and when you move so many times, it just kind of happens I guess. I honestly debated going to community college and living at home because the thought of my sister and my mom spending so much time together without me made me sick. For the past three years, it had just been the three of us, and I didn’t want to be left out. I didn’t even go to Mizzou because I was scared that if I went to school an hour away that it would be too easy to come home and I would end up being “that” girl. I hate “that” girl. I needed to go far away, like I’m talking ten hours far away, for me to be able to go to school at an actual university. Pathetic? Maybe. But I think that’s one of the real reasons why I thought to choose that particular song, because it’s a song she only sang to me.
As for “Closer To Fine,” I think I chose this because it takes me back to a time when we were actually a normal family. Isn’t that a weird term, “normal family”? Is there such a thing? Probably not, but I do miss the family that we were.
I loved when Trillium said “songs that represent different periods in my life, and songs for each person that I love - and sometimes for those I’m not so fond of.” It’s so true. Before writing this post, I went back and listened to all of the songs you guys wrote about. I added a bunch of them to my iTunes library, and every time I hear them I’ll think of you.
There is that one song out there for everyone, you just have to find it. I am sure most of us had a hard time narrowing down our choices because I can say I have many favorite songs that mean things and that hold memories for me.
ReplyDelete“Without music life would be a mistake. “ ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"I just remember being refreshed by the way that the song captures the loneliness that we all hide, and I remember my soul being filled and rejuvenated by the idea that people are connected even in their pain" – Josh
When you are walking on campus, notice how many people you see with headphones on and are in their own little world. Music is our way to cope and stay sane in this crazy life that we are trying to create and live.
There is nothing like finding those lyrics that seem to be telling your life story. It is such an unreal feeling. A lot of times it can take your situation to a whole different level. Music is soothing, it is exciting, it is true…it is our lives.
Tonight, pretend you’re an acrobat, and you’re being thrown on top of the world.
ReplyDeleteDo you still wish you were beautiful? Cause you will, will always be beautiful.
Tonight, pretend you’re a cigarette and you’re being smoked by a picturesque girl.
Do you still wish you were beautiful? Cause you will, will always be beautiful.
You will, will always be beautiful.
You will, will always be beautiful.
Will always be beautiful.
Will always be beautiful.
Will always be beautiful.
Right now, I wish I was a cigarette being smoked. Breathed in. Inhaled. Absorbed. Swirling past someone’s heart and into their lungs, but instead of staining them black, I’d like to be the kind of smoke that warms but doesn’t burn. Smoke that fills. Smoke that stays tucked in behind jackets, and skin, and breath. I’d like for someone to consume me.
Right now, I’d like to be an acrobat. I wish I wasn’t so easy to figure out. I wish I could float above it all. Effortlessly floating in black on top of the world where everything is hidden in that veil. I’d like to pretend that I’m not so obvious. I’d like to pretend that you don’t know me, and that the searching out has only begun.
Right now, I feel beautiful.
Right now, I feel I could be thrown on top of the world, I could be consumed, I could be found out.
And to think, that music could make me feel all of that.
I really appreciate a venue where we can all address music as something more than notes and melodies.
ReplyDeleteMy senior year of high school I thought I was SUCH a bad-ass. I was dating a guy at Birmingham Southern. He was an English major and also in a band. Needless to say, whatever he said, I ate it up. I was so naive.
We were sitting on his couch, talking about poetry and I suggested that one could think of lyrics as the poetry of our generation. He laughed. Of course, at the time I turned beet red, and as my opinions got thrown out the door so did my fight. But now, older and wiser...and having had my opinions thrown out the door many times more...I really don't care whether my boyfriend or my poetry professors say its a wrong opinion.
What we have all said here is what I think semester after semester in the system makes us forget...the reason we first loved literature in the first place. Music has the ability to capture basic human emotion and magnify it until it is so completely beyond us that it acts as a unifying element. It draws people together and helps us to find something deeper running through ourselves. As Josh said, "I just remember being refreshed by the way that the song captures the loneliness we all hide". Through music we feel more connected to ourselves, and once we get to that very core, the most human part of ourselves, we find we begin relating once again to each other.
So much has been said about music, I am afraid my words will utterly fail at grasping the beauty of music. It's just that I am not that much into music. GASP! Yes, it's true. Don't get me wrong, I have my favorite band, I go to concerts, etc. But I have never been that much of a musical person. I can't play an instrument (unless you count the nose...ba da chhh). I don't write lyrics. I don't listen to that many different bands. Basically, I am musically illiterate. But I still feel it. It still wraps me in my arms when I desperately need something to hold on to. It still gets injected into my vein when I am fiending. It is still there, sometimes fleeting but always tangible. And though I may not be as musically adept as some of the others in the class, I know that without it, the silence will strangle us. And I'm not ready to be strangled just yet.
ReplyDelete