cathedral

What is it about music? How can a song or an album change a persons life? What is that hidden message that only the beat of a drum, guitar and vocals can hide? What does it say? Why can't I hear it--understand it--yet I know it is there, effecting my being? Music and melody can redirect my mind, body and soul. If I hear the perfect song, I will enter the perfect mood. I can be happy, oblivious, all-knowing, alone, out front, sad, empathetic, numb, and content all at once, all while hearing the perfect song. It ends when the song ends. It doesn't happen when someone else is with me, because I wonder, do they feel it to? Can they understand the change in me? Is it so solitary?

Why does the perfect song change so often? Why can one song be it for a while--weeks, months if I'm lucky--then it loses the charm? How come I have to wait so long between discoveries? The time between, I spend in a world where music is sans life. I forget about the perfect song, that it had at one point existed. Then, suddenly, I find a new one, and I remember the old ones, a memory dusted off and put on display. Until, of course, the new fades, and gets packed in the same soggy, moldy box the old one came out of.

I just--two days ago--discovered the new Death Cab for Cutie album, Plans. I haven't felt this good about music since finding out about Hooverphonic almost six years ago. What the hell have I been doing during the time between?

Display, though: Battersea from Hooverphonic is one of the best songs I've ever heard. It changed my life, once upon a time.