Is it outrageous for someone writing a blog about music to say I sometimes forget to listen to music?

I do.

Life interrupts. Not only do we sometimes get too busy for our favorite pastimes, sometimes we’re in a mood where we just don’t want to do anything. 

The election took it out of me, as I know it did many people. I waffled between miffed, irritated, and sad. I was drained. And I’m not here to talk about all that, because to be honest, one of the driving factors in creating this blog was to redirect my writing from politics to something that has a little more respect for my blood pressure.

But after returning from a vacation (Spain is all that by the way, and you should be making plans for your trip instead of reading this) I fell into the political news abyss. That downward spiral comes with a bottomless side of online debate, and neverending self-assigned rants intended to point people in the right direction – people who aren’t even listening.

The pre-election preoccupation with the fight led to a numb day after, followed by a laser-focused determination to expose how such an outcome could happen in America. I’m tired again just explaining it.

In the midst of my rage, finger pointing, and “I’ll show them” resolve I forgot to just stop, listen, and breathe.

If I stop listening to music, I stop thinking about it and am in no place to write about it.

But a few days ago I slipped in the earbuds, gave the playlist page on my iTunes app a good hard swipe like I was spinning to be in the Showcase Showdown, and punched shuffle.

Erykah Badu Essentials. 

If you love music – and you must or you’d never want to read this – you know what I mean when I say the second the music filtered through my head, all was right.

It was “Didn’t Cha Know” but any song would have done the trick. Ironic that a few lines into the song she says, “I think I made a wrong turn back there somewhere”.

Science has shown music can stimulate plant cells. A Smithsonian article in 2019 highlighted Swiss research that demonstrated how different types of music affected the flavor of cheese as it aged. We’re all cheese, and when your parents fretted over all that rap music and loud rock and roll you were exposed to they might have been on to something.

Science aside, music just makes everything better. I’ve said that before, and I’ll say it over and over again. It calms us, relaxes us, makes us smile. 

In “Spirit of Radio”, Rush captured how valuable music can be to us with “Emotional feedback on a timeless wavelength, bearing a gift beyond price, almost free”. It is priceless.

The Doobie Brothers nailed it in “Listen to the Music” when they said, “people getting ready for the news, some are happy, some are sad, oh, we got to let the music play.”

So listen every day, and never get caught forgetting how much better it can make you feel.