The Intricacies of Music

For as long as I can remember, I have always liked various forms of music. As a little kid I remember going to see Alabama with my mother in concert. I loved the song "Mountain Music". As I got older, being an '80's child, I loved '80's music...even the hair bands. Eventually my tastes changed and I started listening to a little rap music, then heavy metal, then back to rap. Musically I was well rounded, but I had a glaring problem...whatever music I didn't like, I dismissed as automatically being worthless. I can remember spending time with my Grandparents when I was young, and they always had country music going. And I mean the country with the extra "twang" involved. Sure every 5th day or so I heard a song I liked, but for the rest of it, it pretty much made me quesy. I can remember playing cards with my parents and Aunt and Uncle on Saturday Nights growing up, and making fun of my parents because they were always listening to the "Oldies". Even as I got married, I used to fight tooth and nail over musical control with my now ex-wife. She liked alternative rock. Green Day, The Cranberries, and stuff like that. Back then, I would have rather stuck my package through a meat grinder then listen to Green Day. As I got older though, I wised up...matured. All of a sudden I realized that just because I do not like Hootie and the Blowfish, it doesn't mean that they suck. As I look back on things now, my earliest days on shift in the Air Force saw me listening to the Oldies station all the time...I loved it. Next thing I know, I have a Hootie CD around 1997. Even today I have grown to be a fan of Green Day and all their songs I hated in 1995, I enjoy today. I'll even take it one step further. I can tolerate and actually like and listen to country music these days due to the fact that my girlfriend likes it (especially the older country) and because she is wonderful (even if she hasn't let me bump Wu-Tang in the sled yet) I kept an open mind and now even by myself, I can be found whipping down the I-nine-oh with a country disk in the CD Player. There really isn't a genera of music that I cannot derive some sort of happiness out of. From the pizza laced songs from my Dago homeland, to bagpipes, to even the rare Euro-Techno beat that I doesn't make me wanna hang myself.I find myself these days the true definition of eclectic. I still love rap music, especially the old school, but at any time you can find me bumping country, swing, big band, jazz, rock, classic rock, heavy metal, punk, classical, anything. And not only does that keep my horizons wide, but it makes it easy to deal with other people who listen to just a certain form a music...chances are I like it too.

Taking all this a step further, if I ever had to make a time line of my life, I could do it musically. I can correlate inportant events whether good or bad in my life to what I was listening too at that exact time...whether a specific song or an album. Whenever I hear "Mountain Music" I can instantly picture myself somewhere around 6 or 8 years old with my mother at the Rochester War Memorial experiencing my first concert. When I hear "Peter Piper" from Run DMC I think of the time I first heard rap music. When I hear Black Sabbath it takes em back to the late '80's when everyone was into Metallica, but I was into original Metal. When I hear Overkill's "Deny The Cross" it takes me back to high school and staring contests against my man B-Shan and how I would change the lines in a desperate attempt to make him laugh before I did, or even B-Shan's funny and sometimes violent impressions of a Metal Band's drum solo. Good times. I can hear songs today were prevolent in my rotation back when my marriage was starting up, when I was leaving for the military, when I was in Tech School, stationed in Georgia, overseas in Korea, back stateside in California. I hear songs and they put those images of times past in my head so clear its as if they were on a brand-y new Hi-Def T.V. right in front of me. It's like a running time line that is always ready to be reviewed in my mind at just the slightest provocation from a "Piano Man" or a "The Bridge is Over". With each day that passes, and I had more life experiences to my agglomeration, music is right there with them. Whether its something from 10 years ago, 15, or just yesterday reminding me how truly happy I am for the first time in years, I can associate music along with it. Maybe you will read this and think "dude is wacked", but we all have our own imbroglio's that require us to find a way to deal with them. Music has become an outlet of sorts, and escape at other times for me and it works. I take solace in my expansive musical tastes, and I'm willing to bet that most of us when prompted can look at music and start to relive days past as well.