This I Believe

I believe that music isn’t just a melody.

I believe that a song can be a memory. It isn’t just lyrics its life’s moments reflected in a 3-4 minute interval of time. I like music because it is always open to interpretation; I can make it my own and relate it to my life. I believe that music keeps me in the present of what I am feeling at that very moment. But it also has the unique ability to take me back, back to certain flashes of my life I may have forgotten or placed away. Music gives me the chance to relive a memory every time I hear a specific note at the beginning of a song.

If I turn into another

dig me up from under what is covering

the better part of me.

Sing this song

remind me that we’ll always have each other

when everything else is gone.

Dig by Incubus, these lyrics alone take me to being surrounded by boxes of clothes and posters, it’s my last night of freshman year, in my dorm room with one of my roommates. She is rummaging through Friend’s DVD’s and I am blaring this as loud as it can go. I’m blaring it because it means something to us both, I learned a lot in a year, about life and about friendship. She taught me not to be afraid of who I am and those lyrics, that song, represents how I felt when I realized that. This is only one example out of a thousand songs with thousands of memories attached to them. I believe that music can reinforce life’s lessons better than any book or philosopher could ever do.

I have always felt like music is a part of me, I started singing full songs my mom taught me at 18 months old and have had an ear for it and been singing ever since. I become engulfed in the sounds and meanings to the point where I could get lost for hours, just listening. Even as I sit here writing this essay music is playing into my headphones, sending me into that writing “safe zone” where I feel like no one else can touch me. I’ve become dependent on it, I rely on it, for support and reassurance that there will always be a song I can listen to that allows my moments to be recorded. Music lets me escape to those moments whenever I need to.

It can relate to my deepest darkest secrets and my greatest fears, my ambitions and my dreams. It has taken me in at my highest point and my lowest, allowing me to drift off and reminisce. Music gives me a new experience every time I hear it. It says exactly what I’m feeling expressing it in beautiful arrangements that tell the story.

I give credit to those who make the music, it is a collection of feelings I get to choose from every day depending on my mood. I’d like to thank them for keeping my memories safe and for making sure that when talking fails music speaks.