Gen-X Jim presents: Shut Up! My Song Is On…

By JIM CLAYTON/Staff Writer

How are ya, folks?

Hopefully, life isn’t slapping at you like a Becky with a purse dog walking through a spider web. To anyone out there named Becky, don’t get upset. It’s a metaphor. I’m probably not talking about you. Or, maybe I am. React accordingly.

I had a classmate ask me an innocent enough question, the other day. Unfortunately, it sent me spinning off into a vortex of justification and left me with an existential debate raging in my head.

“What is my favorite song, and why?”

To answer that, we have to take a bit of a trip down the yellow-bricked road of social consciousness and accept the responsibility it implies. You may have noticed that there’s an intellectual, spiritual, and emotional gap in our society that Gorilla Glue, gaffer’s tape, and 20 of my grandmother’s bobby pins couldn’t hold together. We have adopted societal norms that are designed to create crotch rips in the fabric of our social denim.

Oscar Wilde told us that “Society exists only as a concept. In the real world, there are just individuals.” Yet, that very concept he speaks of will look you dead in the eye and tell you to “Be Yourself. Just don’t do it like that.” Communication is the only way you beat the separatism in a society. That requires a “universal language.” Music is a universal language.

Do you know what the cool thing about music is? It encompasses so many different disciplines. Maybe you’re a numbers person.

1. The theory of music is mathematical; notes, chords, and intervals combine into a structure we call melody.
2. If you’re a science type, melody is your jam. It’s auditory and biological. Noise travels to your ear holes, morphing into signals that your giant grey gland interprets and stores in the amygdala along with… wait for it…
3. The psychology of music. Emotion! Emotional response! The emotion of memory! Music encompasses everything from your love of puppies to your intense hatred for noisy eaters.
4. Finally, all of this is sparked by the contributions of a few individuals’ creativity.

Best of all, you don’t have to be a mathematician, a scientist, a philosopher, or talented to be swept away in a song, and transported somewhere else in your mind.

If I’m driving down the road, and Def Leppard’s “Rock of Ages” comes on, I’m immediately in 1986, flying down the dirt roads of Taylor County, Texas, in an avocado green, 1976 Plymouth Duster, windows down; a car held together by duct tape, wire and prayer. I was living free for as long as my tank had fuel in it, and my radio had a volume knob.

When Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” plays, I’m on a road trip to L.A. with two of my closest friends. It’s 3 a.m. and we’re driving through the Arizona desert. The sunroof is open. All three of us are singing along at the top of our lungs, like the functional idiot friends we are.

If The Eagles “Pretty Maids All In A Row” comes over the radio, I’m standing in my driveway, working on my oldest daughter’s car, watching my youngest daughter swaying back and forth in her tree swing; all in perfect rhythm to the song.

I’ve got thousands of those stories, and I bet you have your own.

Fredrick Nietzsche once said, “Life without music would be a mistake.”

What is my favorite song? It’s the song that rings true to you. And I dedicate it to every person who feels like they don’t fit the system. You look different. Feel different. You think differently. I see you out there. I feel the things you feel. I am you. Unique. Just like the rest of us.

Stay different, because different is beautiful.

Until next time, remember the rules.

Be good to each other.
Take care of yourself.
And don’t be a jerk.

P.S. … Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” is kick butt.