"Music is like a drug, when you hear it you have a vision, and that vision can change over time or remain the same."
- Lewis Black

"If you listen to a song and get an image in your head, and then you go home and watch MTV and the image they're showing is the same as the one in your head,...KILL YOURSELF. "
- Lewis Black

"Let the music be your master. "
- Led Zepplin

November 17th, 2007

I love music.

I'm not ashamed to say this. Many people who know me say that my tastes run a tad eclectic and I really have no desire to argue to point with anyone. As I sit here writing this piece, I'm listening to my iPod to Ravel's Bolero. I'm sure those of you who are Blake Edward's fans find the first few minutes entertaining and then start the song from the beginning. I do this every once in a while, depending on the mood I'm in, but usually I sit back and let the music build to it's climax and allow it to end.

There's something in that but it's just filthy.

Aside from the obvious symbolism of the piece, I enjoy this piece because it's good as background music when I'm writing or working on something that requires inspiration and focus. It starts slow and quiet and simple with the sensuality of a flute and other woodwinds take turns at this simple tune every time it cycles. Then the instruments slowly come together in this tune until it becomes this triumphantly proud movement and by the time the song ends it's this monstrously powerful construction that seems to explode and end. It's good for a little over 15 minutes. This is my second favorite classical piece.

My favorite piece has simply evil undertones. I enjoy it because it makes me feel like a mad scientist in a lab. I'm about to add a lighting bolt to a creature of lifeless tissues in my quest for world domination.

There's something in that but it's just filthy.

In any event, it's Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Many people know this piece because it's associated with corny horror movies where a mad scientist would be in front of gigantic pipe organ and playing this very disturbing piece.* I could never really figure out why a scientist would feel the need to interrupt the machinations of his evil plan to sit back and play insane music. One would think he had something penciled into his daily mad scientist planner, "1:30 - Play Bach Toccata and Fugue (D minor) while waiting for that last bits of construction to be completed on the death ray... - 2:PM - Lunch. 3:PM - Make ultimatum to UN and fire weopon on Capitol Building."

Everyone needs a hobby.

However, I digress. Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is also the first piece they play in the movie Fantasia. It's also the piece that Keith Olbermann uses when he introduces "The Worst Person in the World". The second part of it (the Fugue part) is a bit ethereale as the organist must use every bit of his body to play it. It's very complex and I find it stimulates parts of my mind so much so that if it were under a PET scan it would light up the results like fireworks. I usually listen to this when I want to wake up my consciousness. It's not something to be played when you're hung over, but it's something that is for the mornings you just can't get your head together. It's better than ginko biloba.

Music has a way of integrating itself into almost every avenue of our life. What we listen to says more about what's going on in our lives than opening your heart to a good therapist. For example, my iPod is a wonderful device. I own a 30 gigabyte iPod and I use it to entertain me at work or if I'm at the mall or if I have a long bus ride home. There's a feature within the device that creates a playlist of what I listen to the most. It's called, "The Top 25 songs most played".

See if you can make an evaluation off of what was collected in my Top 25 and make an assessment of my mental well being:

1. Crazy Dream by Los Lonely Boys.
2. 1234 by Fiest
3. Radio Nowhere by Bruce Springsteen
4. Bad Day by Daniel Powter
5. Mr. Blue Sky by The Electric Light Orchestra
6. So Serious by The Electric Light Orchestra
7. Heaven by Los Lonely Boys
8. Help! by the Beatles
9. Highway to the Sun by The Milwaukees
10. Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival
11. Who Says You Can't Go Home by Bon Jovi
12. Because by the Beatles
13. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor (part 1)
14. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor (part 2)
15. American Girl by the Milwaukees
16. I Can Help by Elvis Presley
17. Mozart's String Quartet No. 14 in G Major (off of Mozart for the Mind)
18. Allegro Con Brio Symphony No. 25 in G minor K. 183 (off of Mozart for the Mind)
19. Concerto for Keyboard & Orchestra No. 20 in D minor (off of Mozart for the Mind)
20. House of Wolves by My Chemical Romance (off of the Black Parade CD - AWESOME!!!)
21. Elenor Rigby by the Beatles
22. Symphony No. 35 in D major (off of Mozart for the Mind)
23. Stuck Between Stations by The Hold Steady
24. Sonata for Two Pianos in D major - K 448 (off of Mozart for the Mind)
25. The Great Gig in the Sky by Pink Floyd

I did not compile the list. The iPod did. It made a call based purely on the numbers of what I listen to most often. And what I listen to most often is based on how I'm feeling at any given moment. So moment to moment, these songs won out. I think it suggests volumes on my personal inner workings and what I'm all about. I find it interesting.

But music can bring you up to a physical place you didn't think existed. How many of us work out and can only hit that high peak of performance when they hear "their music". It's the stuff that pumps you up and keeps you going, even when you think you are out of gas. I keep Ultra Dance Volume 8 on my iPod for just such an emergency. I don't use it every time. But it tends to do the trick. For me, unless I find myself having to DJ for kids who like club music, I usually won't use it for any other reason than that. It has a beat and it helps keep pace in cardio. Period.

And the opposite end of the spectrum is also obviously true. I have a select set of music I only play when I'm hung over. This is left to the music of James Taylor, John Denver, Enya and other really easy listening that won't be too aggressive or have any other message than, "Shhhhhhhh, it's okay... go back to sleep." Along those lines, there is also music for meditation and music for exactly that. It's music I use to help relax and meditate.

There's a certain amount of snootiness associated to music. Especially when people do what I'm doing now and discuss the music they like or dislike with another person. The worst fear that people have is "You listen to that crap?!!" Yes. Yes, I do. And that "crap" is what defines us in a way.

True story: I was in the mall, listening to my iPod and I realized that I needed some new cologne. I wanted to smell different. Behind the counter was this young woman who obviously wanted to help me find what I was looking for and make a sale. So, as an icebreaker, she asked what I was listening to.

"You wouldn't know it."
"What is it?"
"ELO"
"Are they new?"

I sighed. I'm now officially one million years old.

"No....ELO stands for 'Electric Light Orchestra'."
"So, they're electronica."
"No. How old are you?"
"19"
"It's before your time."
"I listen to older stuff... like from the '80's"

Once again, I'm one million years old and I quickly tried to think of a song that they wrote that she might know.

"Ever here of Evil Woman?"
"That's '80's?"
"No, that's '70's, but they wrote it."
"Oh."

In those moments, my music defined me as someone as old as her dad and as a person who listened to obscure music that no one listens to. I was not ashamed of listening to ELO, but I did recognise that it was music from my youth and that it was out of phase with her worldview. And being in that older phase is what made me shutter.

Embarrassed because I'm old and I like old music.

There's also music that I just detest. Stuff that makes me angry if I even think about it. Country music does it to me because I see no logic in it. I understand Blues because you know Blues music is for when people are miserable and remember that everything can be worse. My collection of Blues stuff is limited but does pretty well. Country music on the other hand is just masochistic and lately has become waaaay too right wing and Christian. It's enough to make me ill.

I keep music from the House of Blues, as well as Robert Johnson and even the Blues Brothers. It's like having your teeth cleaned. It's painful but it's a good kind of pain and at the end of the experience you feel better for it. When I feel like drinking, George Thorogood and the Destroyers will order "One Burbon, One Scotch, and One Beer" for me or when I'm "Bad to the Bone". The Blues Brothers then come in when I say, "Hey Bartender!" Keep the cigarettes coming and keep the beer tap a flowin. If you haven't tried drinking to the blues, you haven't lived and you are most likely not in a 12 step program. Remember the first step to recognise you are powerless... without another beer. We keep that spirit alive with classic rock music. Play the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Zepplin, and Floyd. It will lead you to a place that usually difficult to leave.

I'm not a big fan of rap, although I've known some rappers. I can politely listen and figure what value it has. However, for the most part, rap is not part of my library. I can understand it or, at least, I can understand what's birthed it. I just don't really have any use for it. It does not lead me to places I want to go. And that should be okay enough for anyone to understand.

It was a happy day in the Vikar household when my wife weaned herself off of country music. It did seem somewhat inevitable given the subject matter of cheatin, lyin, Jesus, and child rearing. On occasion she will listen to Willie Nelson, which who doesn't like Willie? But on the whole she doesn't listen to it anymore. I told her that like minded people flock together. Country western people flock to country music people. And if you spend any more time than 15 minutes in a Country Western bar, you'll see that the clientele is filled with people who truly deserve one another.

You know who you are.

Did you ever notice that certain places only play certain types of music. I mean outside of a Simpson's episode you'll never hear Iron Butterfly being played in a church. However, you'll hear a lot of Harry Chapin when you go to a funeral parlor - especially "Cat's in the Cradle". It's the music that usually makes people cry when they think, "I COULD'VE SPENT MORE TIME WITH MY DAD/SON AND WE LOST TRACK OF EACH OTHER!!!! WHY DIDN'T I TELL HIM I LOVED HIM!!!!!!!!" There may be a bit of subliminal suggestion when they play old tunes like Fiddler on the Roof's "Sunrise Sunset". I notice there's less crying at wakes that don't have music than the ones that do. It seems to be the best way to get that murky atmosphere of abject misery when there's something in the air to suggest loss, time not spent, and regret.

Hey, maybe it's theraputic. I wouldn't know.

One of the things that Joseph Campbell has suggested to best live your life is to "follow your bliss". Bill Moyers had asked him how to do that and he suggested that you do the things that you want to do. When you are alone and you play your favorit music - no matter how hokey it is - and you find yourself completely enraptured by the moment is when you've found your bliss. It is that moment of happiness that people have when they are doing what they want and are living how they want without any kind of restriction.

And when your mind and spirit are at one it truly defines what makes you happy.

*- Once again, I recognise how filthy this sounds.