music.
i have been thinking about the heavy irony found inside songs and music itself. music is not just a sound, nor a melody. it is not just something produced from the hands and mouths of us beings. it is something much more magical and widespread than that. like it or not… we are all engulfed. music has swallowed the entire human race whole. it is the one thing we all have in common. through war, through peace, and whatever niches are found in between… it is far more encompassing than even I can truly comprehend. music is a chameleon. changing colors and identities. following what it needs to and lending itself to any precise or given moment… yet deep down always remaining the same at it’s organic base. music is created by us… yet music can, in return, create us as well. it can change how we look at the world. it can help mold and shape us as people and gorgeously reckless minds. we are all true testaments of that. what an insane and beautiful cycle that will never end. in many ways we create and live off of each other. this symbiotic relationship is what keeps the worlds of many spinning. let’s look at all that music can do. I’ve seen it take more shapes, forms, and dimensions than i could ever find the time to count. music can be a blanket. when your bones are shaking and teeth are chattering… you can lay it over you for warmth. when you feel like your sky is cracking and the entire world is running from as you are drowning music can save your life. we have all experienced it. the song that makes you believe again. that makes you believe that your night that has lasted weeks or months will and can be pleasantly interrupted by an audible beam of sunlight. music can be your hero… your life vest… your savior. however…music can also be the flames of hell. it can be a painful reminder of all of the things you did or didn’t do. it can yank the past out of the ground and back from the dead and seat it right next to you as it whispers the cold truth into your ear through your speakers or headphones. music can be our ghosts that will forever haunt us. the ghosts, regrets, and mistakes that seem closer to us at times than our dearest of friends. music can be a knife to the back, a slap to the face, a stream of tears down your cheek. but also the feeling of rebirth, growth, and liberation. songs can make you want to fall in love, smile, and feel like you’re flying all at once. the unmatched beauty of it can make you love, hate, dance, sleep, believe, miss, hope, and feel practically any other possible feeling one can possibly feel. these feelings such as life, love, and pain are all necessities of not just life… but the proof of it. music can be your fantasy. the land and lives you’ve always dreamed of living through. the people you search for and the places you hope to one day feel underneath your feet. incredible how something can be your reality and fantasy all at the same time, right? music has been my sunshine, my mars, and at times my one and only friend. music is ironically both the medicine and the pain… both the loss and the gain. music has broken me down… made me feel both strong and weak at the same time… woken me up… put me to sleep for days. you see… music seems to do and be everything and anything except just music itself. music is never just music. to exist… it simply cannot be. music would have never survived as just music. in order for the songs to live on… they have to take on a life of their own… whether for the better or for the worse. ironic how something so simple, yet intricate can be so many things to so many people… yet can simply be too busy and carry too much weight to have the time or energy to simply just be itself.
-alexander
