I'm not talking about your current "jam," or something off the greatest hits album of a band that you tell people is your old classic rock favorite in order to appear complex.
I'm talking about music that feeds you; music that you need.
I mean the bonafide, whoops-I'm-sorry-am-I-crying-all-over-your-sheet-music type of shit. Sound that skin can't contain. The intangible emotion married to a "higher revelation," to quote Beethoven. The music of insane strumming and drum rolling and heart beating and nervous sweating and a riff that you could kiss. Lyrics that bind themselves around your limbs and you wear them as armor. The music that unnerves you and then you can't sleep.
I'm talking about the kind of music that wails on your heartstrings.
There's a beatnik I know that once described the human heart as an instrument that can be played. He's a musician and understands more about the world than I think he realizes.
Heartstrings that can be played until your fingers bleed.
I know it to be true: There is music that can shatter you.
~
This is not to be confused with a music junkie. Some wisp of a person who gets high off the dirt in a guitar. A buzz that lasts until the song ends and then you simply click "Shuffle." These types base it on adrenaline from the "epicness" of a bass drop or a line in a song that "totally describes how I'm feeling right now, man." There is some overlap, but make sure that you get the distinction straight. This is the line between mood music and soul music. I'm not saying it's bad, in fact, I'm a junkie too, so don't misinterpret.
Mood music is for sharing. It's a status update. Useful but not essential. Because we have to face the fact that no one else, no matter how many times you try, will be able to get the same feeling that you get about your brand of soul music. No one person is the same and no one person can be disturbed by music the same way.
Soul music means hitting the repeat button for the rest of your life. It means writing the lyrics on paper, tables, desks, walls, body parts. It's trying not to fall to your knees in the middle of the hall. It means crying because you can't sleep. It reverberates against your eyelids. It infests and infects. It's power.
~
Soul music doesn't feel good. It feels right. It's the manifestation of your emotions into something that makes you learn something new about yourself every time the song starts over. It doesn't have to be the whole song. It can be a chorus or a line. It can be the beat or the bounce. Any element of a song that makes you bleed. It's an obsession. It's sadistic and alien but is comforting and natural. It's inherent.
It's greater than anything we could ever fathom.
You may think I'm a lunatic. Well, I am. I'm absolutely, fucking insane. But I hope that you, one day, can experience what I'm failing to describe. I hope that you can find the music that leaves you breathless. And if you already have...then I am so glad that I am not alone.
This is the Feel Good in My Soul.
~
Things I am thankful for today:
1. Iced coffee
2. Brand new socks
3. Inspirational gingers
Hair dark, character darker, like a black hole, drawing me inexplicably into her innocent wiles. Like Maud she is both terrifying and inspirational, the little corners of darkness in my heart seep uninhibited inwards, soaking every available space, fed by her torment, lust, desire, and passion. Her intellect stimulated me into conversation – I, abandoned and defiled by others, she rose up from the darkness and offered me solace under the wing of her black cloak. I danced with her on the edge of the precipices of hell; turning my back for just a moment, I returned to an empty ballet floor and a roaring fire beneath. She was gone, a letter of hate scratched into the edge of the cliff. I had failed even her, my mistress of dark desire. Now, years later, her ghost haunts the little corners of darkness in my heart, whispering seduction in my nightmare-ridden ears, our conversations echoing eternally, if only just a whisper, dragging me back to the solace of her black cloak.
ReplyDelete-Beatnik
Delete