ESCAPE INTO MUSIC

Drugs, sex and rock n roll didn't deliver the type of utopia they promised. Rock n roll, classical, country, rap, hip hop, alternative, Christian Contemporary, gospel, and easy listening music do. When I need a release other than pumping iron or writing, music does it for me. It only takes a moment to crank up the CD player and find myself lost within the world of music. Those of us who love music, I mean really love music, inhale it, write it, love it and live it. My family teases me often, complaining that I turn everything into a song, either written by myself, or some other entertainer. From the words of the late Harry Chapin, "Music is my life, it is not my livelihood, and it makes me feel so happy, and it makes me feel so good."

Music is my drug, my lover, my romantic involvement, my escape into ecstasy, and my best friend. If I desire to feel a particular emotion, all I have to do is find the appropriate CD and crank it up. Music speaks to me and for me. what I am unable or unwilling to say through prose, I can and do say through song lyrics. I am my happiest when singing before a crowd, and will drive across town to a redneck bar, not drink a drop all night long, and stay till close to closing time entertaining while somebody picks the guitar, or through the karaoke process. Nothing makes me happier than being totally submerged and surrounded by music.

As a child my parents often commented that I was singing before I could talk, and bouncing back and forth to the beat of the music. Nothing has changed all that much since then. Like my father before me, music is my life, and like my father before me, I immerse myself in it at every opportunity.

My lyrics tell the story of different attitudes I have held, and may still hold, and repeat with resounding accuracy the story of my life. My lyrics are almost like reading my diary. As the entertainer Anna Nalick writes, "and I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd, cause these words are my diary screaming out loud, and I know that you'll use them however you want to."

Kidd Rock expresses his love for musical diversity in his lyric, "I take some punk rock, then I mix it with some hip hop, I get ya higher than a tree top, ya wanta run with the Kidd Rock." Christina Aguilera shouts, "Sorry I'm not a virgin, sorry I 'm not a slut, I won't let you break me, think what you want." These writers, their lyrics, and mine are the words that represent the pulse of life.

If you think lyrics can't tell a story, or produce an image of a person, listen to this mixture of mine:

The double standard of morality

has never done a thing for me

its like a dog on a chain

a horse on a reign

some losers insecurity

or

I'm more than aware you don't approve of my actions

but I'm gonna do just as I please

learned long ago, its a game we're playing

I intend to play to win

too many times I've been fooled by pretenders

and its not gonna happen again

or

He's a cat in the jungle

He's a razor too sharp

He's a duel with the devil

He's a knife in your heart

or

sometimes I'm still surprised

when I look into your eyes

at the love that swells inside of me

God must have looked down

in his grace

and seen a more deserving face

but no place else on earth

for you to be

or

you watch me sparkle

you watch me glow

you don't have to use it

to see my beauty show

you don't have to pick the flower

for love to grow

or

I'm not lonely

I'm surrounded by music

if you want some of this

you're gonna do more than use it

Those are only a few of my lyrics, and just thinking of them adds dimension to my life. Music is the ultimate expression, the only poetry listened to by mainstream society, and the only way a person can express his or her deeper feelings while making others feel just as happy as it makes him or her feel to do so. You might have noticed that I sometimes add music to my hubs. I do so because music sometimes completes the emotion behind the writing as nothing else will do.

Nothing livens up a party like music; nothing relaxes after a hard day's work quite like music. Music may be God's greatest creation. No wonder heaven is described as having an angel with a harp of gold. My Dad once sung, "When we're behind those gates of pearl, we'll learn a lot of things. We'll have a harp that's made of gold, Perhaps a thousand strings. We'll sing and shout, and dance about, the lamb will dry our tears, we'll have a grand homecoming week, the first ten thousand years." Happy to report, my dad is behind those gates of pearl now, and perhaps he is playing his harp. One thing is for sure, if a harp exist, my dad is up there learning to play it, because as has also been true for me, music was his life.