Music = life. ♥

So, I was really proud of the narrative I wrote for my english class. A ton of other people also did theirs on music and whatever, but this is personal, and it means a lot to me. :)

“Music is love in search of a word.” These words, spoken by Sidonie Gabrielle, are the absolute basis of my life. Music is truly one of the most important things in existence to me. Whether it is blasting my favorite band while I am home alone, speakers shaking, dancing around like an idiot, or playing a flute solo in the middle of the winter concert for my favorite class: wind symphony; whether it is dancing along to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” with the “old people” from church, or nailing the saxophone soli in jazz band, music is one of the few things in this world that can always, always cheer me up. My love affair with music blossomed with my first Green Day CD, American Idiot.

Even though it was not really until Green Day’s genius album that music started to become an irreplaceable part of my life, music has actually pretty much always been a big part of my life. I have always loved singing, a love that grew in church, with the hymns and children’s choir. My parents are both pretty big fans of music as well, so I grew up on Christian rock and music from their generation. In elementary school, music class was always my favorite time(s) of the week. I would be so proud of myself after getting the string on the end of my recorder that meant I had done well on my playing test, and in fifth grade, I even had a vocal solo during our presentation of “We Are the World.” So, I guess I grew up being exposed to all different kinds of music.

Then, the summer between fifth and sixth grade, I was exposed to an all new experience. I went to Canada for two weeks, without my parents, with a student travel group called People to People Student Ambassadors. It was a tour I will never forget, and I made friends on that trip that I actually recently reconnected with. But there was one person that went on that trip that means more than the rest of them. Her name is Courtney, and she is one of my best friends. I consider her the reason I know of half of the music I live on. She and I were best friends long before our adventures in Canada, and we’re still best friends now. She also grew up as exposed to music as I was, maybe even more so. But, she grew up on Christian music as well, the “pastor’s kid” she is, so neither of us were really well-versed musically. So, while in Canada, when my oh-so-innocent best friend connected with someone who listened to music that made me wary, I was amazed at the world of new music that opened up its pearly gates, just for me.

I still remember the day clearly, the warm summer day (yes, Canada does get warm in the summer). Our People to People group was on a day trip to a huge local mall. In the mall, after we got our smoothies and checked out the accessory shops for hair clips and lip gloss (classic 11-year-old girls), we found a record store. And this was not a variety store with a few shelves of jumbled up CD’s, like Wal-Mart or Target. And this was not a store with music-related stuff and albums, like your classic Hot Topic. No, this was a record store. I walked in the door to go stand by Courtney, getting that weird feeling from walking on a carpet that was as close to being a legitimate hard floor as it could be and still pull off being called a carpet. At that point in my life, I did know a few secular songs; Christian rock was not the only taste making up my musical palette.

One of my favorite “tastes” at that point was “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” by Green Day. I would watch the music video over and over again online, feeling like a rebel because I was listening to a secular song. The feeling I would get while absorbing the emotion behind the song was almost indescribable. I would get goose bumps and get teary-eyes and even get butterflies. It could only be described as love.

So I searched those record store shelves for something of comfort, being bombarded by album covers screaming at me from every angle, names upon names of singers and bands that I didn’t recognize … until I caught a glimpse of something: Green Day’s recently released album, American Idiot. I picked it up and turned it over to check out the song listing on the back, a move that was new to me but felt old hat, incredibly natural. After flipping it back to the front to inspect the yellow sticker in the corner (“new $19.99”), I assessed my options. Courtney and her music-ambassador-esque friend were getting something. I wanted something. I had a ton of spending money with me. It did not take long for my immature mind to decide that I no longer wanted it, I needed it. So, of course, with the amazing willpower my 11-year-old self had, I got it.

I remember going back to our sleeping quarters, which were dorm rooms in a college that night, laying in bed after lights out, my new Green Day CD blasting through my headphones on my Walkman. I could not sleep: I was scared, because the smoke alarm in my room kept sporadically beeping, and I had no idea what could possibly be causing it. In retrospect, it was probably something simple, like a warning of the approaching death of the batteries or something. Nonetheless, I lay there, waiting for the worried butterflies in my stomach to go back to sleep already. I lay there, trying to memorize the words to my quasi-rebellion. I lay there, feeling like the B.A. I was not, because I was listening to music that had one of those “parental advisory: explicit content” stickers in the lower corner … music that swore.

Despite how exposed I’ve been to music since my childhood, I was very musically innocent, until Green Day opened my eyes to a completely new world unknown. A new world that I could turn to whenever I needed. A world that helped me both to grieve and to accept the deaths of two grandparents: one in the winter of ’08 and one in the summer of ’10. A world that has made my angry moments just a little less irrational, and has made my happier moments that much better. In a simpler way of saying it, from one of my favorite songs, “The Way We Talk” by The Maine, “I’ve got a long list of things to say, but I’ll leave it at ‘you amaze me.’” I do not think my love of music will ever end, and I am perfectly okay with continuing on with my completely moral affair.