This post has been kicking around in my head for about a month or so now and I just haven't known how to go about writing it. I'm still not sure I'm going to be able to express what I'm feeling and trying to communicate with whomever is reading this, but here it goes.
I love music. Almost all genres have a home on my iPod play list. I very happily have Johnny Cash next to Nine Inch Nails (heck, I have Johnny Cash singing Nine Inch Nails) next to Bananarama next to Beethoven next to Frank Zappa next to the theme song to WKRP in Cincinnati (don't judge, it's a catchy tune!) I enjoy many current and popular tunes that are currently getting plenty of air play on the local radio stations and sing along as best I can and often.
It's not exactly news that music can elicit all sorts of emotions in us as living beings. That it can start tears falling as memories are triggered isn't a surprise. I clearly remember riding in the car with my parents when I first heard the song Woolly Bully by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs when I was about 6 in my parents Buick and I thought it was the funniest song I'd ever heard in my life. To this day I smile when I hear it because I remember how much I couldn't stop laughing at this song initially. I recall doing air bands at a Youth Retreat Weekend with my church youth group and drawing the song "I've Got You Babe". This song, along with the kids I was grouped with resulted in this being what I call an "our song" with my boyfriend at the time as we started dating that weekend shortly after the air bands were over. We were together for over a year, and it ended horribly, but that song makes me smile because it started well and with humour and friendship. The song "The Promise" by Tracy Chapman makes me smile as I fondly remember a boy I was dating in my early 20's when I returned to school for my third year. The song is all about waiting for that one special person and having them wait for you. I think of him whenever I hear it, even though we obviously didn't wait for each other. I remember singing "Copacabana" to my son when he was first born and I was alone with him for the first time ever. And I made sure I learned all the proper words to "Close to You" by the Carpenters for my daughter because as much as I would love to have had each one's special song from me be a Beatles song, the Carpenter's seemed a better fit for my precious daughter. "Dancing Queen" and I'm brought back to all my Friday nights dancing at Club Abstract with my best girlfriend (she was a huge Abba fan). Bohemian Rhapsody and I'm brought to my first kiss with my husband (also at Club Abstract :)) I could go on endlessly I'm sure about how each song I know reminds me of this moment or that person - but the point remains, music effects mood. My one girl friend once got pulled over whilst driving my car because Ruby Soho by The Clash was playing loudly in the tape deck and it resulted in her foot getting heavier as she enjoyed the song.
Most of a person's interactions with music are all quite personal and introspective so (and this is where much of my interest in this song post comes from) when the song "Thinking Out Loud" by Ed Sheeran was heard for the first time by me, it struck me as odd that the person it brings to mind for me isn't someone I particularly care for or about but instead is the wife of an old boyfriend. huh?? Years ago, when DW and I were still speaking frequently (I've managed to stay friendly with most of my ex-boyfriends) I had asked him how he knew that he wanted to marry his wife and he quite eloquently said it was when he was holding her hand in his and looking at the two hands and thought "I'd like to know what this (their hands) will look like when we're old". This beautifully simple and romantic statement and each time I hear this song now and I'm stuck thinking of this woman I've never met and likely never will meet. Do I want to? Definitely not. Would it be awkward - yep. She is why he and I no longer speak. It was by her 'request' that we stop, so we did. So I wonder why when I hear this song, all I want to do is contact him and tell him to play this for her on their next anniversary or romantic dinner? There is no love lost in me for this person, I admit it. So why is there this part of me that wants to do something nice for her? No clue, but for as long as this song will be on power rotation, there I am - stuck thinking about a woman I will never meet; the woman who came after me...
“Sometimes the best and worst times of your life can coincide. It is a talent of the soul to discover the joy in pain—-thinking of moments you long for, and knowing you’ll never have them again. The beautiful ghosts of our past haunt us, and yet we still can’t decide if the pain they caused us out weighs the tender moments when they touched our soul. This is the irony of love.”
― Shannon L. Alder
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