Musical Therapy: Music, Like, Totally Saved My Life
Okay, so music didn't save me. A musician never saved me from a burning house, music never cured me of a disease, and deep depression with suicidal thoughts has never been my mental illness of birth. However, I have heard that phrase uttered from the mouth of a living person who is being earnest, and I can completely, no doubt about it, believe that it is possible.
There has been a time in my life, actually quite a few, where a song or a collection of songs felt connected to my experience and helped me through some dark times. I mean, I was a teenager once, I listened to edgy angry music that I identified with. I was all about trench coats, that black no.1 (a bit obvious, I know), and being totally retarded. That's what the teenage years are for!
There is just something special about music that we can all really come together on, enough so that entire fields of scientific study have been done all about it. We have studies that show that music can help the development of a fetus, can connect with us as a baby, help our development as children, and grow with us to the days when we are old & crazy and we attain the right to tell all them youngsters that music isn't like it was, it was better in our day! Yeah, good for you Mom, you go listen to your Rolling Stone.
There is even a fully licensed profession for music therapy. Just like any other art, music and the ability to create or witness the creation of others has real therapeutic value.
We have nursery rhymes and lullabies for as long as recorded time to calm a child. It is hard to say what the oldest one is, but we have a lullaby from the 15th century about the birth of Jesus being sung on YouTube and I'll be direct this time, because I can't fit Lullay, My Liking into a sentence naturally.
Music and songs belong to every culture all over the world, unique to what makes them who they are, just like all forms of art are defined by the individuals who create them and what defines an individual is their upbringing. So, yes, we connect with music, we have to, it is everywhere and it is a shared human experience. Not that all of us share similar musical tastes, that's silly, we connect with what we know. You may like country, I, for the most part, don't. I never had more trucks than cars, or a farm, but I had a dog, just never had a dog in my truck on my farm.
Not that I necessarily need to fully connect with a song to like it, I like plenty of hip-hop, even though most of it isn't made for me. The thing is, if there has been an experience to be had, there's a song for that. No matter the day of the week, mood you are in, or state of mind, there is a song for that.
It might be a Sunday Bloody Sunday, or a Blue Monday, when Tuesday's Gone we're Waiting For Wednesday, because it's Thursday, one day until Friday, I'm In Love and Someday I'll Be Saturday Night. It can be any one of the Days of the Week, One Week, Two Weeks, 6 Weeks, In a Week, if you're a Freak of the Week, it might be a Month of Saturdays, but It Was a Very Good Year, and Life is Good.
