music. love. life.

It's weird how powerful music is. You hear a song, a song with meaning and sentiment and you instantly get transported back to a moment and place in time where you can smell the music and taste the colors and and feel time pass over you like the flutter of a moth's wing. Evasive, soft, and gone too soon.

Hearing mmmbop, I'm transported to the summer of '97 when I was 12 years old and my whole life lay ahead of me. Endless possibilities, endearing innocence tainted ever so slightly by a non-reciprocated crush on the boy next door, a zest for life matched by no other driver. I could take on the world and surely come out on top. Life was good, the music was great and the world was my sandbox. Hearing mmmbop now, I feel a sense of loss and nostalgia, for that prodigal being, that passion for perfection and excellence. Where do we go wrong? Or is it just how it is to be..

Switch to DJ Sammy's version of heaven and traces of my first year in university waft past me and try as I might I cannot grasp it fully. A bittersweet time, being on the brink of adulthood but still not old enough for proper responsibilities or even making it to class on time. It was still our little heaven though and that song will forever remind me of all the good times 'cos let's face it, that's all that matters, the good times. The bad stuff and the poison, you need to let go of that, so that there's plent of room for smiles and love and life. And then you can grow, as a being and as a race. We're all in this together like it or not and as science explains, every body in the universe influences ever other body in the universe. And so what you carry in your hearts and mind and souls should be light and radiance and goodwill.

Whatever the music may be, there is nothing as inexplicable as that moment of clarity that you sometimes get when you hear a piece of music that touches you in the deepest recess of your soul. Like the haunting melody of Pachelbel's Canon in D or the heavy strains of the guitar in the opening bars of Live's Dolphin Cry or the sweet earnestness in Don McClean's voice as he sings about the starry starry night. Each a masterpiece in their own right, each serving a purpose and fulfilling it beyond a doubt. The music will play on long after we are gone and along with it our memories and strains of fading laughter. Let's hope we can appreciate the beauty of the music while we have it and learn to live and feel those moments in time that you know will leave a lasting impression on your very soul..