Music. It spans all religions, all generations, all cultures, all life. Crickets have their song as well as trees in the wind have theirs. Music fills the soul, strips a man bare, sets the tone and the mood of an era. The power in music is undeniable and indefinable.
With a few notes I can be transported to my childhood, dancing to music from my mother’s record player. My siblings and I leaped our way across the living room to Mozart. We played and danced along to So Long, Farewell from Sound of Music, each assigned a role to act out. We gyrated our way through Twist and Shout and sang along to Simon and Garfunkel. Our memories are in the music.
I played Annie’s Song by John Denver for my son today. At thirteen he sits in the passenger seat next to me, his head buried in his phone. The first strains begin and he looks up squinting from the bright sunshine outside. “What’s this?” The appalled look on his face makes me smile.
“John Denver, he’s a legend, a classic. Just listen.” I tell him. He keeps his head up, not disappearing into his phone again. By the end he’s singing along with me and I tell him about my memories, my childhood.
“A record?” he says with shock that mom is so old. We arrive home and we sit in the car, finishing the song, neither of us wanting to open the door and cut it off. The moment disappears in the hustle of taking the groceries inside and putting them away. But, maybe sometime later, he’ll hear that song and remember a drive with his mom on an early spring morning when the sun was out and we sang.
Rebecca Lamprey 