I’ve been enjoying a two-year trial of SiriusXM in my car, and while I don’t know if I’ll renew when the price triples at the end of the trial next summer, I have been listening to lots of music in the car again after years of commuting almost exclusively with audiobooks.
The variety is amazing. Some days I’ll listen to a channel full of classic 1940s music that my parents would have love. There’s an all-Beatles channel and a Springsteen channel, channels devoted to sixties and seventies and eighties music, and blends of it all. There are CCM and bluegrass channels, and I’m reminding of the healing power of music all the time.
I can also listen, if I want, to the audio feeds of the various news channels, as well as talk radio, where I get a different vibe. These TV and radio feeds tap into my anger and my outrage, and they reach into my heart and try to pull out hatred and fear. I don’t hear any attempt at understanding or healing on those channels.
I wonder how much better our world would be if the people who claim to be our rulers would sit down in comfortable chairs and listen to music together — or play instruments together. Instead of “Who do we want to kill today?” they could ask each other, “Who’s your favorite band?” “What’s your favorite song?” “What song was playing when you met your spouse?”
Artists who get outraged when politicians they hate play their songs at rallies, maybe they could reach out and say, “If you like my music, maybe we have something in common that could lead to understanding each other better.”
Music is a language that crosses ideological barriers. We should communicate with that language more instead of tapping our anger and outrage buttons.
