Last night I looked through an old stack of records at a coffee shop downtown. Feeling the albums slip past my fingertips, I longed for a record player and my Dad's collection of LPs. Pandora doesn't have shit on the clicks and slips of vinyl.
Isn't it wonderful what music can do for your soul? Even though the saddest love song can take you back to that EXACT first time your heart was broken, make you yearn for "the one that got away"; the emotions music brings to our surface is amazing!
Isn't it wonderful what music can do for your soul? Even though the saddest love song can take you back to that EXACT first time your heart was broken, make you yearn for "the one that got away"; the emotions music brings to our surface is amazing!
How can a four minute melody bring you to euphoric happiness or drop you to your knees in agony? This is a rhetoric question. I'm not going into all of the psychology of music here. All I'm going to say is I am so happy that it does!
After Noelle died, I had a hate/hate relationship with music. Every song reminded me of her. Especially love songs. I would either place her in the role of the rejected lover and be sad she never got to experience that or I would cast myself as the rejected one...because death is the ultimate break-up. Even though she was my child, she was my companion, the longest relationship I had ever been in.
I became music-less (if that's even a word...I don't think it was before now). I refused to let myself feel either the joy or sadness of a song. It hurt too much. In the days following her death, joy hurt as much as sadness. And then...Lilli brought music back into my life. Listening to her sing; whether it be Today's Hits or a slowed down version of "Ring of Fire", made me realize I needed to feel the music again. It was a part of me, a part of Noelle that I couldn't let die with her.
So I turned up the radio, I danced (horribly) along. I cried at the sad songs. I laughed out loud when a song brought me joy. One drunken night, I convinced my friends to dance around in their underwear to Kid Rock's, "Cowboy" in memory of Noelle. The things my friends will do for me! Thank goodness for the privacy fence, because back porch dancing is the best!
"Tuesday's Gone" is one of those songs that hit me in the gut. It automatically takes me back to my childhood. Lynyrd Skynyrd was one of my dad's favorites. I spent my childhood listening to their records and my teen years jamming out to their tapes with my best friend, Melba.
Today, I listened to this song and related in a whole new way. Tuesday became Noelle, and like Ronnie Van Zant, there have been so many times I have wanted to get on a train and get the fuck out of town.
'Won't you please take me far away?...
See I'm riding my blues away...
Tuesday, you see, she had to be free...
But somehow I've got to carry on...
My baby's gone with the wind...
Train roll on...
I'm riding my blues away...
Ride on train!...
Goodbye, Tuesday...'
Goodbye, Noelle...but I've still got the music and I've still got the memories. And thank God I've got friends to dance with me in my panties. When the pain is too much to vocalize...I can let the song writers say it for me, and when the song ends, the sadness can fade away.
After Noelle died, I had a hate/hate relationship with music. Every song reminded me of her. Especially love songs. I would either place her in the role of the rejected lover and be sad she never got to experience that or I would cast myself as the rejected one...because death is the ultimate break-up. Even though she was my child, she was my companion, the longest relationship I had ever been in.
I became music-less (if that's even a word...I don't think it was before now). I refused to let myself feel either the joy or sadness of a song. It hurt too much. In the days following her death, joy hurt as much as sadness. And then...Lilli brought music back into my life. Listening to her sing; whether it be Today's Hits or a slowed down version of "Ring of Fire", made me realize I needed to feel the music again. It was a part of me, a part of Noelle that I couldn't let die with her.
So I turned up the radio, I danced (horribly) along. I cried at the sad songs. I laughed out loud when a song brought me joy. One drunken night, I convinced my friends to dance around in their underwear to Kid Rock's, "Cowboy" in memory of Noelle. The things my friends will do for me! Thank goodness for the privacy fence, because back porch dancing is the best!
"Tuesday's Gone" is one of those songs that hit me in the gut. It automatically takes me back to my childhood. Lynyrd Skynyrd was one of my dad's favorites. I spent my childhood listening to their records and my teen years jamming out to their tapes with my best friend, Melba.
Today, I listened to this song and related in a whole new way. Tuesday became Noelle, and like Ronnie Van Zant, there have been so many times I have wanted to get on a train and get the fuck out of town.
'Won't you please take me far away?...
See I'm riding my blues away...
Tuesday, you see, she had to be free...
But somehow I've got to carry on...
My baby's gone with the wind...
Train roll on...
I'm riding my blues away...
Ride on train!...
Goodbye, Tuesday...'
Goodbye, Noelle...but I've still got the music and I've still got the memories. And thank God I've got friends to dance with me in my panties. When the pain is too much to vocalize...I can let the song writers say it for me, and when the song ends, the sadness can fade away.