Music, Its The Soundtrack Of Our Lives (Blogathon 25)

This guest post was written by Michael C @ The Wonderful World of Nothing Worthwhile. Interestingly, I told my guest bloggers that they could write about anything and Michael and The Big BahUna wrote very similar articles, inspiring me to go with the them and I'm working on a post of my own.

Here he is, Michael C....

Could that possibly be the worst blog post title I have ever created? Yes, it’s certainly in the running, but think about it for a minute. That’s exactly what music is. We all have songs or snippets of songs that mean something to us. Maybe it’s because we relate to it and it echoes something current or long gone in our lives, maybe it’s a song we were listening to when something momentous happened to us and so that memory is now forever linked to that song, or maybe, just maybe, it’s the song that was on the first time a girl slapped you. Hey, it happens. Is it me or do I sound like the narration for Kevin Arnold on the Wonder Years?? At any rate, music is very important and if you think it’s not, try to get through the day without hearing it either directly or indirectly. Keep in mind though that if you accept this challenge, I’m going to personally contact you and hum ‘Alone Again, Naturally’ to you for 45 straight minutes…

I personally have always welcomed the idea of creating my own soundtrack. It’s actually a little bit of a problem for me, but I found that counseling was too expensive and my therapist couldn’t understand the brilliance of George Jones’ song ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today,’ so I had to make the decision the stop getting treatment. Just the other day as I was walking out of our building during a fire drill, I was singing the chorus of ‘Disco Inferno.’ It just seemed like singing ‘burn, baby burn’ during a fire drill was completely appropriate. And God forbid you have the name of a famous song, because at that point I lose the ability to address you without singing the chorus of that particular song. Women named Gloria, Brandy, Barbara, Michelle, Penny, Diane, Janie etc. have all had to deal with me singing the song containing their names (btw, let’s see if you can associate all of those names with the appropriate song…don’t try too hard though, there are no prizes for it). Going back over this list, I’m afraid I can’t find one of those ladies that actually enjoyed the singing. Wow, that’s a pretty bad track record. I wish I had realized it before.

I’d like to say that the same singing treatment holds true for men, but I really don’t sing to other men. I may sing WITH them, but not TO them. Believe me, the distinction is a big one. Although just once, I would like to meet a tambourine man so I could get his attention by calling out ‘Hey, Mr. Tambourine man!’ Seriously, I won’t be complete until I can do this. I still can’t get into an elevator without humming (to myself of course) Aerosmith’s ‘Love In An Elevator.’ Granted this makes me giggle, but I just figure it makes me look friendly to the other elevator riders. Not that anyone uses the word ghetto too often around me, but I promise doing so will get you at least two verses from Elvis’ ‘In The Ghetto.’ And yes, I am still one of those dorks who answers ‘Ghostbusters!’ whenever I am asked who I am going to call. I swear that never gets old, does it!!

There is a certain back road I drive on where I have to have ‘Eastbound And Down’ by Jerry Reed from ‘Smokey And The Bandit’ playing. It just heightens the experience so much. Whenever I have to walk around in a suit for work, I am always humming the James Bond Theme. Sometimes just for fun, I’ll stop suddenly and turn. It’s a blast to do with that song playing in your head, but the people walking closely behind me never seem to care too much for it. So you can see, I do have a little mental soundtrack running all the time in my head. However, no one has a better soundtrack than the President of the United States. He gets a band that plays HIS song ‘Hail to the Chief’ every time he walks into a room. Now that fellow music lovers, is some serious sountracking!

I encourage everyone reading this to allow music to permeate your lives the way it has mine. Well, I don’t encourage you to pretend you are James Bond or Frank Sinatra, because that’s my bag baby, but let music slip into your mind while you are doing something. Unless of course you are giving a presentation to members of your upper management, because that really isn’t the best time to be seen singing ‘I Like Big Butts’ or ‘Afternoon Delight,’ if you catch my drift…

I love music and cannot escape its daily influence on my life. Oldies, country, standards and many more little sub-categories of music can be found next to my stereo, on my MP3 player, in my desk at work or in my truck. To me, noise is the absence of music not the music itself. I need music and am rather music crazy. When I hear a song I like, I will do everything to obtain in. This is part of the reason why I have so many cds that I don’t listen to and can’t remember buying. We are blessed to be able to hear, appreciate, play and be moved by music. Could you imagine not having music in our lives? Could you imagine if the ability to be a musician or a music lover suddenly stopped?

Uh, yeah, this is probably the point where I would start singing the Kingston Trio’s version of ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone,’ and change ‘flowers’ to ‘music’ if we were having a conversation…I just wanted to be upfront about it.


Useless music factoid of the day: Did you know that Barry Manilow’s ‘I Write The Songs’ was written by Beach Boy Bruce Johnston about founding Beach Boy Brian Wilson?? See isn’t music fun?

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COMING UP NEXT: A quest post by missmeliss!