Soundtrack

Part Two

“Now close your eyes, look into your hand

What do you see?

Life is our Song to give and learn to take

Time will not wait

Oh won’t you please come dance

While the song’s still playing

Won't be long till the silence falls”

(It’s Not A Song, Amy Grant 1985)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuIgy1NHaWk

            My love for both Amy Grant and her Music is my longest relationship with any woman outside of my family. She has been part of my life since I first heard her sing “Giggle” back in 1977. For a few years, my appreciation of her sound evolved along with her style and presentation. When she released “Age to Age” in 1980, I fell completely and unconditionally in love with the entire package. It was the meaning that spoke most to me. It has been over forty years and I still sense every heartbeat. Everything changed when I discovered Amy. Every project she manifested seemed to flow in parallel with my life at the time. It was like she played in the under, a cornerstone of Christian ideals and New Age ecumenicalism. To this day she continues to release new music, music which still plays like it is the soundtrack to my life. I find something in every lyric, in all the phraseology, in the musical bed that plays underneath my chaos. I have never met her and I probably never will. If the occasion just so happened, I would really only have “Thank You” to say. Words could not express. She is tied into my history. Sometimes, she was my history. Every song, and I do mean every song, has been imprinted in my heart and my soul. I know every word. The three times I have seen her in concert were Canadian tour dates. I have almost every song she ever recorded on CD or MP3. I have her book “Mosaic.”  I even have a gem mint copy of her on the cover of Marvel Comic’s Doctor Strange issue 15. I actually own a hard copy of all her videos. I have two certified autographs and the 1994 poster of House of Love. For years, I always knew she was more for me than against me. It’s not been easy for her to be pro-LGBTQ. She encouraged me to think it would all be okay if we just come “out in the open.”  It’s not just that she speaks to me, it seems that she sings to me. 

“For the sake of never making waves

I kept my secrets to myself

And no one ever really knew the

Darker shadows of my heart

But I will be a witness

That there’s nothing in me dark enough

The power of forgiveness

Cannot rescue from the deep”

(Out in the Open, Amy Grant 2003)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS8Qln5mwaQ

            It was my first day of music class, back in grade 6. Without warning, we were forced to pick the musical instrument we would be playing, they told us, for the rest of our lives. This was the string section. The violin was too classy for me. The viola is too squeaky. The cello had already been chosen by my sister. So I stood beside a grandfather bass, ready to learn how to play it. One of the Smothers Brothers stood with his. I had never really given much thought to playing anything. I took piano lessons for a year when I was even younger but they never took. From Elementary school, all the way to High School graduation, I held my trusty friend. Sometimes I found it easier to hide behind it. I also took voice lessons for a few years during this time. Needless to say, I have an extensive background in music theory and music history. The same class that trained me on bass, also introduced me to Classical music. At first it seemed so foreign, almost alien to me. Where the hell were all the words? It turned out to be like eating a Tootsie Pop. You lick and lick and lick until you get to the centre. The reward is in the flavour.

           Over time I fell in love with Classical music. I now hold a greater passion for it. It is the main genre I choose to listen to on the radio, especially when I am driving in heavy traffic. It soothes this savage beast. I also took trumpet and saxophone while attending Strathroy District Collegiate Institute, although for much shorter amounts of time. I wanted to play the bass. I wanted to listen to anything like it. It was Mozart who first struck gold.  His Symphony No. 40 in G minor captured me the moment I heard it. The Piano Concerto 21, also by Amadeus, cemented my appreciation and loyalty to the brand. Classical music had become like an otherland for me. I can escape there, into aesthetic sounds and pleasant ideas. Again, it soothes this savage beast. Whether Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Holst’s The Planets or even Beethoven, Handel, Brahms and Bach, Classical music is an agreeable music bed for a life well lived. If you’re looking for a soundtrack for solace and comfort and ease, turn on 96.3, The New Classical FM out of Toronto, Canada. It is available online and offers “beautiful music for a crazy world.”

“Today I found myself

After searching all these years

And the man that I saw

He wasn’t at all who I thought he’d be

I was lost when you found me here

And I was broken beyond repair

Then you came along

And you sang your song over me”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m_dP2n-5W8

            I don’t listen to popular music, Country music or even Alternative music. I get samples here and there from other people’s choices but I don’t seek out any other form of music besides Gospel and Classical. I listen to Christian music. When I need more than just Mozart, I turn to Amy Grant, The Afters, Michael English and Plumb. Bands like Third Day, Sanctus Real and even Diamond Rio only add to the spiritual mix that finds me wanting. Sometimes it can seem as if the very voice of God is reaching out to touch me through these songs. It’s not some message of salvation or a moral treatise that draws my attention. It’s the feeling I get when I hear people sing about God’s love and faithfulness. They can send me to reeling. At one point, many years ago, it was John Denver that held me captive. In the late 1980s, it was Country music that soothed this weary soul. Ever since the death of my first partner in 1995, other Christian artists beside Amy have filtered into my world and my mind and my being. I am lost inside each one, always wishing that God really worked that way. Always hoping the words and the melody could bring me closer to the peace that passes all understanding. In the 1970s and early 1980s, my mother listened to Christian artists like Evie Karllson and Keith Green. I discovered Petra along the way and the foundation for my current focus was laid in those notes of gold. I have to admit, sometimes hearing folks go on and on about worshipping “The Lord” can seem rather repugnant to me. There are times when hearing about Jesus’ love for me does not ring true. Still, always lying beneath it all is the message of acceptance and forgiveness. I feel hope when I tune into the power. Christian music has become like a soundtrack to my spirituality. It is a door to the other side of living. It lies there like a spirit would.   

“So I say

Thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing

Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing

Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty

What would life be?

Without a song or a dance what are we?

So I say thank you for the music

For giving it to me”

(Thank You for the Music, Abba 1977)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dcbw4IEY5w

            The truth is there are not many forms of music I don’t at least appreciate. I like Incubus as much as I like Matthew West. Abba and OneRepublicmay not have much in common but the years separating them mean little to the symphony that plays constantly in my head. Good is good, if you know what I mean. It’s not often that I tire of the sounds. Sometimes it can seem like a cacophony, song after song playing over and over again in my head. Most times, it flows all together like strawberries and cream. The uniqueness of my experience with music is not that different from other people’s. I think the artists change but the message lingers just the same. I am never surprised when the music touches me negatively. Sometimes remembering something through a song is not the road to travel. With the wrong choice, you can fall back into the place you were when you first heard that melody. Music summons, and not always in a productive way. Even the pain is part of the mosaic, the underlying bed of emotions that sings out loud and strong. It is also silent and calm. It is everything and yet nothing at all. The days of heading to a record store have almost faded into dust. The Internet, streaming and YouTube have all claimed a place in the universe known as music. The radio station in my head is full from each of them. Each song in my heart, goes on and on. It’s a comforting thing to know I have connections with my history through music. Sometimes I can hear them all playing underneath it all, the mix comes to a crescendo and I just happen to sing along. I like Madonna and Rihanna and Adele. I’m not much for Beyonce or Gaga. I like Bruno Mars and Keith Urban but I am not much Sam Smith or Justin Beiber. I have an eclectic collection stored up in my noggin. It plays like any music bed would. It dances. It lingers. It makes me feel alive and I thank God for it.

“A musical bed is a songwriting-composition term used in music production. A musical bed consists of the bottom layers of tracks consisting of bass, drums, the main harmonic progression with chordal instruments like guitars or keyboards, and other musical effects, usually created by a music producer. The musical bed is then given to an artist to compose the melody and lyrics on top. The musical bed is like the foundation of a song and its creator receives writing credit and royalties, the finished song cannot be licensed without permission from all who created the song.”

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-orchestra-octobass-1.3810990