We’ve been receiving dozens of stories from people coast to coast about the transformative power of music. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and we are publishing a story every day in May.
Submitted by: Jonathan Fields (Twitter, Facebook)
Ever moved to laughter or tears by music?
Good music takes you somewhere. Genre doesn’t matter. Good is good.
Sometimes it gives you a reprieve from your body or life. A welcome diversion. Other times, it drops you back into them. A reminder. It’s time to come home. To deal. And feel. And heal.
In the 70s, my parents kept the turntable perpetually-stacked with folk and soul. Country Joe and the Fish. Aretha Franklin. James Taylor. Hendrix. Janice. Pentangle. Seals & Crofts. Carole King. Mixed in with a little J.S. Bach for effect. The first note of Nina Simone’s Baltimore takes me home. Carole King’s So Far Away never is.
In high school, my tastes matured to rock, metal, punk and new-wave. I joined a band. Played guitar. Dear God, was I bad. Sorry, mom. Actually, sorry, everyone in a one-block radius.
By the time they realized how bad I was and began secretly auditioning replacements, I’d discovered my 6th-grade classical guitar lessons had given me finger-picking skills that made me way better at bass than rock guitar. Mercifully, they let me stay, holding on for dear life as Andy beat his double-kick drumset into submission, while I attempted something moderately resembling a groove. A gaggle of groupies draped around stacks of equipment and amps in the corner smoked and chatted in admiration. I might’ve made that last part up. Nobody admired me. I could’ve cared less. I was in heaven.
Then, there were those moments in Dave Leonard’s basement. Lying on the tattered remains of hand-me-down rugs. Well-worn bandanas draped over garage-sale lamps, casting more shadow than light into a glimmering haze of smoke and conversation. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon tumbled loudly out of speakers that cost more than my ‘71 Dodge Dart with 140,000 miles and a radio that wouldn’t die. Utterly transported. Sweet oblivion.
In college, I started DJing. Parties and clubs. The perfect outlet for a music-loving, gear-obsessed introvert. It justified (and paid for) turntables, massive stacks of speakers, and amps and cables, and a record collection I’d kill to have today. Three nights a week, a sea of humanity would deliver themselves into a club or party, where I’d learn to craft an hours-long, being-packed journey into sound and emotion. Breath and devotion. My dirty little secret, I was having more fun behind the tables than all of them combined.
Music has always been the place I could visit on a dime to transcend a moment or come back home to it. To stop thinking, and just feel. And be. For the first 35 years of my life, it was my go-to. No matter what else swirled around me, music kept me okay.
Which is why it’s so strange that, for the last two decades. I’ve largely tuned it out.
Life. Just. Got. Busy. I got distracted. Disconnected from something that, for so long, had been such a big part of not just my identity, but my essence.
Maybe it’s the moment we’re all going through now, more akin to collective devolution than evolution or elevation, but I’ve been coming back home to music. And, it feels so good.
Sitting on the couch with Stephanie last night, instead of binging on the latest season of whatever, we pulled up youtube and began watching and listening to concert footage. Chris Stapleton, Adele, Justin Timberlake, Mac Miller, Lizzo, Florence and the Machine, Chance the Rapper, Chris Martin, Jorja Smith, Thundercat. We blinked, hours passed. Bliss.
Earlier in the day, a friend had shared a link to a video.
More than 20 artists had come together in a remote montage to sing the Foo Fighters’ song - Times Like These - to raise money for the WHO’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. I started watching and teared up. Then, I watched again. And again. Not just because I love the song and this version was so deeply moving. But because it brought me back to what music can do. For me, For others. For the world. And, the chorus was so spot-on for the moment
It’s times like these you learn to live again
It’s times like these you give and give again
It’s times like these you learn to love again
It’s times like these time and time again
So, maybe my invitation today is to find the soundtrack for the moment you’re in. To bring more music into your life, however you define that. For me, it’s literal music. Sound. Rhythm. Voice. But you get to define what lays down the tracks. What moves through you, what beats your heart and breathes you. What serves as a vehicle to both transport you from, and deliver you back into yourself.
Whatever is the source, find your music. Then, let it play.
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