Day 21

Essential Music

iPods and ear buds are so common these days it would be fair to say that nearly everyone carries their music with them.  Those who are not wired to playlists are often on the phone. 

We used to be cautioned to step aside for someone talking loudly to himself.  Now it is common, and the only curiosity is that they speak so often in loud voices -- as if being in public did not matter.

I carry my music with me, too.  But I never bring my iPod out of the house.  When I am out on the streets, I listen like everyone else -- to the music already in my head.

On a walk in October along the 4 bus route heading toward St Paul's Cathedral and the Globe Theatre, I found myself hearing "Mr Tambourine Man." I was looking for photo opportunities and I was not terribly conscious, as I usually am, of my limitations as a photographer. I live with hope, and like everyone else I always think at any moment I will start doing serious photography.

I was looking for brick walls with stories hidden in them, for characteristically English things, for colorful or odd doors, for the sharp slant of sunlight that would give me evocative shadows -- or for anything that would surprise me visually. The white horse, for example.

Without announcing itself, "Mr Tambourine Man" started looping through my head. 

"Hey, Mister Tambourine Man, play a song for me/ I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to . . ."

Why this song when literally hundreds of songs are available in the brain wrinkles?  "Then take me disappearing/ down the smoky ruins of time/ far past the frozen leaves/ the haunted frightened tree/ far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow . . ."

This phenomenon is essentially an emotional association.  So remembering the lyrics correctly, let alone understanding them, is always not critical to the experience.

My students will often write about songs that they find meaningful.  What they assume or hope for is that  the weight of a song -- its emotional or lyrical association -- will automatically make itself apparent. That is, they hope the song will do its magic on me without additional explanation. But often this assumption is false; the meaningful association is personal.  It must be connected to time, place, circumstances, and (most importantly) frame of mind.

The fact that these musical associations are personal, private, or complicated does not change the fact that they are powerful.  I cannot hear the music to "Out Of Africa," which is known and loved by many, without thinking of my daughter's wedding in 2000.  I listened to that music repeatedly in the weeks as I worked on the poem I had been asked to write for and read at the wedding.  I cannot now dis-associate the two.

Essential music may also be the music shared by couples, who will say, "This is our song." One such song for my wife and me is "Never, My Love" from our dating days more than 40 years ago, conveniently (for this discuss) recorded by a group called The Association.

We shared an evening of essential music in late October when Van Morrison performed at the Royal Albert Hall. Like many of the writers who created my essential music, he is my age or a little older.  But the evening was not about nostalgia.  It was about the worlds that essential music brings together.  It was at once very present and timeless -- a wonderful moment evocatively anchored in the past.

Essential music is a tree with deep roots.

Twice in the few days before we leave England, we will have opportunity for more essential music.  We have tickets to experience Handel's "Messiah," first at St. Paul's Cathderal and then at the Royal Albert Hall. Despite the persistent jokey use of the "Halleluiah Chorus" in movies and advertisements, "The Messiah" has retained its power.  When we heard it performed at Carnegie Hall two years ago, I was moved nearly to tears. 

I expect no less this year.  I have come to understand,  regardless of how I first heard it, that essential music -- especially "The Messiah" -- is not about me or about my connection to it, however vital that connection. The fact that my essential music is shared with others, of course, enhances rather than diminishes its importance.  We can share essential music.

So, while I am out and about -- when I am not hearing essential music, or taking in the sounds of the street, or talking with someone, or praying -- I solve problems. Or I write.  In my head.

It is amazing how the knottiest problems will untangle themselves when the body is in motion and the mind is engaged elsewhere.  To bend a famous lyric of Paul Simon's, it's still useful after all these years. No ear buds required.