Music....

Music has always affected me a little more than most people. I was in choirs growing up and most of the time that I'm not working, I live with an ipod attached to my head. I enjoy all genres: rock, punk, classic rock, metal, jazz country, world music, oldies, R and B, Hip Hop and crooners like Frank Sinatra or Michael Buble.

I like bands, solo artists and pretty much any decade, musician or genre in between. I love how, when you make a mix for someone, you can tell how well you know that person by what you put on it. Today, I had one of those moments that always amaze me. Nothing can resonate with a time or experience in your life as well as a song you heard at a particular moment. Today I heard that old jazz song "Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croche and I was instantly back on the stage in eighth grade, singing the song with the Swansonettes.

It's a silly and stupid memory from when I was thirteen, but music has always been one of the absolute high points in my life. My favorite songs are those that I discovered by accident. When I was fifteen, for example, I was babysitting and came across the Verve compilation of jazz hits by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. That was the first time I had ever listened to jazz. I became instantly fascinated by Billie Holliday, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Ella, Louis and others.

Christmas carols will always remind me of being little, because they are what I listened to each night as I fell alseep. The Bell Song from the opera of Lochmey will forever be my grandmother's song. "The Canibal King" is a song I've only ever heard sung by my grandpa. I think he must have made it up.

Janice Joplin, Patsy Cline and Sam the Sham and the Pharos will always remind me of my father. (Though he doesn't particularly like music.) Jefferson Airplane, The Association, Laura Nyro, Smokey Robinson and many other hits of the sixties are my mother's music. Buddy Holly, by Weezer will always remind me of my older sister. Allyson Crouse, Nat King Cole and "Love Shack" by the B52's endure as my mental set list for my older sister's wedding. "Bette Davis Eyes", "Iris" by the Fugis, "Stand By Me" and Red Hot Chili Peppers were my first exposure to "cool music" at the hands of my older brother.

My childhood best friend and I used to listen to early ninties VH1 every afternoon in her basement. We collected baseball cards, formed a band (we never played any instruments...)
and played pool badly while listening to Spin Doctors, Boyz to Men, the Eagles, Miriah Carey, and Curt Cobain.

I learned the Macerena in sixth grade and only reccently discovered that the song had words. This is because I learned it prior to learning Spanish so I never associated the music and words in my head. "I believe I Can Fly" by R. Kelley was the song I danced to with my seventh grade crush. Jonah Matranga could be the single handed soundtrack to my high school years. Which, until the end, were kind of an angst ridden and unhappy time in my life.

Fugazi, Molotov, Strike Anywhere, Good Clean Fun, Against Me and other independent bands
were the soundtrack to my college years. They blasted out of speakers on afternoon drives to Charlottesville or weekend jaunts to the beach with my friends.

Today, my musical taste is an amalgamation of old favorites. It is sprinkled by the Johnny Cash, Van Morrison and "Mary Wore A Red Dress" that I sing with my two little nieces, and rounded out by whatever new addictive riffs I happen to download on itunes. (Where I spend entirely too much money.)

When I talk to God, I think of hymns like "On Eagles Wings," "Be not Afraid" or my favorite, "The Prayer of Saint Francis." No one remembers these songs. The fact that I have them memorized is a completely ridiculous waste of time but they are the soundtrack to my life.