I Believe In Music

I believe in music. There are some pieces that are nice to listen to- but it has a certain emptiness to them. Nothing makes it…special.

The easiest way for me to explain is by example. I give to you the song “Cancer” by My Chemical Romance. The music starts out with a few simple chords on a piano…then you hear a more deep suspension of the melody. It’s a heavy sound to hear, but beautiful in an indescribable way. After a few measures, lyrics start. The words are so heavy and difficult to. The first time I heard the song, my eyes filled and soon I couldn’t control my incoherent sobbing. I gasped when the song ended. I cried even more. I listened to it again straight away. My favorite verse of the entire song is listed below- I warn you though: its enough to make you tear up just by reading it- even just thinking it right now is difficult.

“Know that I will never marry-

Baby, I’m just soggy from the chemo,

But counting down the days to go? It just ain’t living!

And I just hope you know- that if you say good-bye today

I’d ask you to be true-

‘Cause the hardest part of this is leaving you.

Yeah, the hardest part of this is leaving you…”

It’s followed by outing piano chords that hold in a melancholy minor key. I hear the song and I can picture it all. That’s one of the most important parts of truly listening to music- envisioning not only the scene but the emotion. To explain what I see would be nearly impossible- I can tell you this. There is a man in a plain white hospital gown. His eyes are dark, and he looks like he’s cried so many times there are no tears left. He is writing a letter to the women he loves, telling her how he wishes to be buried, and how much he cared about her. She was his life while he was living. He was also explaining that if she had asked, he would’ve stayed alive even if his pain was more than devastating, just to keep her from unhappiness. He puts down his pen, shuts his eyes, and doesn’t open them again. The white walls of his hospital room fade into the distance, and as the chords close out, a group of people in black are standing around a freshly dug grave. One women stays, even as the others retreat. On the grave she places a rose; in her hand is the note. She wipes to tears from her eyes, and looks upwards. It closes out on the single rose atop a cold gray stone.

Without music, true feelings of exasperation, life, love, loss, destruction, and simplicity would be lost. Music is one of the greatest ways to express yourself- and that’s why I Believe In Music.