The music place

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I feel like traveling somewhere where music flows from every doorway and you can hear the dreams in the air wherever you step — not frustrated dreams but fulfilled dreams, because being in this place was the reason for dreaming. Money changers and merchants may think the music is about the money, but the value of music is in the music itself.

“I have a song, and I’m going to sing it,” the musicians declare. “Oh, I hope you love it and it touches your heart the way it touched mine, but the song exists to be heard, and now you can hear it, because I’m here to sing it and now it’s your song, too.”

Doorway after doorway, other songs emerge, until all the songs link together into one cacophonous song that shouts “Love” to all who have ears to hear.

“Music is God speaking,” one poet said.

“It soothes the savage breast,” said another.

I wish I could sing all day, and who’s to say that I can’t, or that I won’t? These songs are mine, your songs are yours, and they are ours when we share, and songs are meant to be shared.

And so the song-makers take refuge in every doorway and sing their songs, and people come to listen and join in.

I want to go to that place. I want to stay in that place all day and into the night, until I have all the music I need, and even then I will crave more, because music is love, and love is musical, and we all need love, and love is all we need.

What is that song you are singing?

Here is my song, too.

The words and the melody are dancing;

I can teach you the steps,

or you can make your own as they move you.

Funny, isn’t it, how just the thought of music has my fingers playing allegro across the page — the harmony may not be perfect but it feels just so; the illusion of perfect harmony is almost as good as the reality, or perhaps the off-key reality is as beautiful as the illusion, because it is music, and music is love, and love is all we need.

I want to make music and listen to music all day and every day. I suppose I should take time to eat and to sleep, but I want the music to keep going.

And so it does — there is music in the sighing of the wind, and rhythm in the turning of the clothes dryer, and music in the tires on the highway. The world is a symphony if we only stop to listen and hear what we’re hearing in its solemn and silly and somber and joyous totality.

What am I saying? What have I said? I will have to go back and read it, and perhaps it will look like nonsense, and perhaps it will look like common sense so obvious I should have felt it in my heart or thought it with my brain, because music is wizardly and holy and everywhere we go. 

And that is where I’m going today.

Binging the magic

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The stream giveth, and the stream taketh away. I recently discovered the TV show Nashville, which had its first run from 2012 to 2018, just in time to also discover that it was leaving Netflix after Monday, Sept. 14.

I finished Season 4 on Sunday night, and I had run out of time to binge Seasons 5 and 6 in their entirety, so I looked at the IMDb ratings and found the top-rated episodes from the final two seasons. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that most of my Monday was devoted to catching eight or nine 42-minute stories including, of course, the series finale.

I am clearly a sucker for stories about writing songs and trying to make a life making music. They built a pile of endearing and not-so-endearing characters and tossed them in a room together. Even though I’ve now seen the best of those last two seasons, I expect I’ll revisit those seasons and all of Nashville when the stream decides to give it back, someday.

Watching all that songwriting magic gave me the itch to pick up my own guitars and see what comes out. But first I need to turn off the television and get some sleep.

We must keep on singing

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A generation of baby-boomer entertainers has been leaving their earthly vessels in recent years — Dolly Parton, Jaye P. Morgan and Tim Curry all left the other day.

We must brace ourselves as so many other giants like Dolly age — we all know who I mean — and when they go, it will be another series of body blows to our collective psyche. My generation produced some great songwriters and unforgettable songs — no brag, just fact.

Willie, Bob, Paul and Ringo, Mick and Keith, Joni, Judy, Paul and Art, Carole, James — and others I’ve forgotten at this moment — Their recordings are their legacy, and we will always have the recordings, Lord willing, to remember them and carry on.

We live in a wonderful world that feels a little heavier today, because Dolly lifted us all up and she isn’t there anymore. I guess it’s up to us to keep that light shining.