The Power of Music

I was feeling kind of down this morning, for a number of reasons. It's morning, it got cloudy, the political situation in our province is not good at the moment. Especially the latter. Politics really gets me down. And much as I try to stay away from it, in this case it directly affects me, so I can't. Ergo, frustration and depression.

And then a friend shared a video clip on Facebook (I'll try to embed the link). It's a group of orthodox Jewish men singing, a capella, around a table (at Seder, maybe?). It's a five-minute movie, and it hit me straight in the heart. Hit me, and lifted my spirits. I don't understand the words to their song, don't even know what language they're singing in - Yiddish, probably - but the sound cut straight through the gloom that surrounded me today. I don't know what it is about those minor keys and the strong beat of Jewish music, but it grabs me like no other and makes me want to start dancing the grapevine.

And that's the power of music. It bypasses all those intellectual barriers, the thoughts and ideas that crowd around us, and goes right for the emotional solar plexus. It crosses international, cultural and linguistic boundaries. And it has the power to soothe, to cheer, to comfort. Martin Luther said that "Once sung is thrice prayed" (which is why he wrote a great number of hymns for the purpose) - it's that powerful. It can express our hearts like nothing else can, even, or perhaps especially, when words fail or when we do not even know we need the expression. That's what I experienced today. I needed to hear that music today, and I didn't even know it.

Life, the Universe, and the Power of Music. It lifted me out of the clouds today.

Addendum: after I posted this to Facebook, another friend of mine managed to track the singers down on Youtube. Apparently it's the Shira Choir, from the States, and the song is called "Im Hashem Lo Yivneh Bayis" and was sung at a Bar Mitzvah. And here it is on Youtube:

Lyrics

When I was younger, I used to wish I could write songs. Music, for so much of my life, has been an expression of who I am, but I've always been dependent on others to express my thoughts for me in that medium.

Part of my problem is that I can't rhyme to save my life. Well, okay, maybe to save my life, if some cannibal had me in the cook pot and said "Rhyme, dammit, or we'll click the barbecue lighter and you're stew!" But at that point, they probably wouldn't ask for anything better than, oh, rhyme and chime, or heart and start (or fart? cart? part? See, I even had to think a minute to come up with those ones. Point proven.).

But then, I was driving in the car the other day, and a song came on the radio that gave me hope. Not because it was such a hopeful subject (although it was that, too), but because the lyrics were such that I could aspire to perhaps, someday, write something like it. It went like this:

"Love, love, love, / love, love, / love, / love, love, love, love...."

No, it didn't say "All you need is..." first. It was just that. "Love, love, love..." A whole song's worth.

I could do that, don't you think? Let me try. Here's a song about one of nature's miracles which never fails to move me:

"Sunset, sunset, sunset, / sunset, sunset..."

Alright, you composers out there, doesn't that inspire you? Come on, boot up your keyboards or midi players or garage bands or whatever you use to create your wondrous melodies, and gimme some tunes!

Somehow, the silence is deafening. No takers. Do you think I need to hone the rhythm of the lines a bit more? Perhaps break it up a bit? But then, that would spoil the simplicity of expression, the purity of feeling. If nobody likes this and wants to write music to go with my lyrics, I must conclude that my art is simply not appreciated. Dagnab it, as my offspring would say. Perhaps I should write a song about that.

"Drat, / drat, drat, drat, drat..."

Life, the Universe, and Song Lyrics. Song, song, / song, song, song...

high-tech produce

It rained last night, and as soon as morning rolled around, out came the choppers. Whapwhapwhapwhapwhap, buzzing over my house, off to blow-dry the cherries in the orchard down the street. I kid you not. Rain means wet cherries; wet cherries split; and split cherries rot very fast. So rain means a ruined crop for cherry orchardists, or it used to, until some smart cookie came up with the helicopter idea.

And when the helicopter was gone, the music started up. No, it's not meant to make the cherries happy- you know, how some people talk to their house plants to make them grow better? Nope, not like that. (And it wouldn't work anyways, because, weren't we taught in no uncertain terms back in the '80's that crops that have rock music played to them wither and die, unlike the classical- or christian-music-listening turnips, thereby proving conclusively that rock music is of the devil? Or something.) And it's not even meant to make the itinerant fruit pickers happy while they pluck those little parcels of black-red juicy goodness off the trees. No, this music is, literally, for the birds. Apparently, so the orchardist tells me, the ravenous beasts have got so used to the orchard cannons that the whizzzz-bang doesn't scare them off any more. But the local radio station seems to still do the trick. The birdies probably just don't like the DJ's taste in music- can't say I blame them, personally. But I have much greater tolerance for the music, now that I know it means I get more cherries to munch, without peck holes courtesy of that feathered thief up there.

Life, the universe, and high-tech cherries. It's all good.