rekkidblogga

Just press replay

I'm re-reading Nick Hornby's "Songbook," a fabulous little tribute to those songs he particularly loves. You know Hornby. He's the brilliant British brain behind "About A Boy" and "High Fidelity." OK, so *now* you know him. As Janna would say, "Well, then."

"Songbook" isn't just a love paean to Hornby's fave tunes; in the text, he pulls a full-on music geekout and delves deeply into *why* the selected songs are so near and dear to his heart. Would the casual reader find any interest in this at all? Of course not. But that's why they're content to pick up their CDs at Wal-Mart, mindlessly tossing whatever "American Idol"-esque pop-of-the-moment that Top 40 radio has sanctioned as "cool" into their shopping carts. These are the people who don't care if their CDs are scratched all to hell or stained by gas station cappuccinos. They are not like us. They are not music geeks.

Hornby is Geek Like Me, though, and in "Songbook" he puts forth a theory (actually Dave Eggers' theory) that true music fans listen to certain songs over and over and over again in an attempt to "solve" them. Once that New Song Smell, to mix metaphors, wears off after the first spate of plays, replays and re-replays, we start listening on another level - searching for the key to unlock the mystery of what it was that made us listen to that song 10-plus times while we gave the other cuts on the record a single play without a second thought. It's a brilliant theorem and I totally buy it. Because I do it. My car radio CD "back" button shows signs of wear from repeated pressings. The idea of playing one song exclusively during my 20-minute drive to work is not foreign. It's happened many times. It's normal to me. I'm with you, Nick.

John Mayer's "Stop This Train" has lately logged the most replay time in my car, on my iTunes at work, etc. It deals with death - or the eventual prospect of dying - and is a gentle, somber, acoustic tune. I'm not death-obsessed. But unlike most people my age, I have to concern myself with death and dying because my parents had me when they were 44 and 43, respectively. My father died a little over a year ago after a long illness; he was 76. My mother turns 79 this April. She's in pretty good health but at 34, I deal with the kind of issues that my peers wouldn't normally have to worry about until they were in their 50s. I've grown up knowing that I wouldn't have my parents for nearly as long as most other kids would throughout their lives. I wish I could change that. So much.

And so when John Mayer, whose father is in his late 70s, sings "Once in awhile, when it's good/It'll feel like it should/And they're all still around/And you're still safe and sound/And you don't miss a thing/Till you cry when you're driving away in the dark," he's singing about my life right now. Mock John Mayer if you want, but the point of great music is to speak to your audience on their own level and I'm a fan of his because his songs speak to me. How does he know what I'm going through? "Stop This Train" might never have been written or voiced. But it was. And I heard it. Amazing.

I'm so glad I've been blessed with knowing the joy of what it's like to let the music play. And play over again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again...

posted by rekkidbraka @ 11:41 AM