How I Listen To Music

The other night Mary and I were playing a game of pool and I put on a new CD I had just made. A song was playing and I asked her what she thought about the chorus. She said she didn’t understand the words so I explained the song. She thought it was sad (Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow Tree by the Carter Family; it is a sad song). Another song came on, I said I really liked that one too (obviously, I like all the songs on the CD, after all I made the CD!) but she couldn’t understand the lyrics to that one either. It was the first time she had really heard the songs and my pool playing skill is so high that one has to really concentrate when playing me (HA), but something interesting was revealed that night. Mary said, “It’s too much work to try to understand the words.” She likes the sound and the rhythms. (Praise & worship music is different.)

I was mildly shocked. I don’t listen to music the same way. Let me explain.

First, I do listen to the melody. In fact, the older I get the more I like purely instrumental music. But when I am listening to this I am picturing in my head the score, what that would look like on paper! Seriously, I try to determine if this is 3/4 time, 6/8, 4/4 or cut time. I love the theme music for the old TV show Wings. It is “a short version of a Franz Schubert piece, Piano sonata No. 20 in A Major, D. 959, IV. Rondo. Allegretto.” But as I listen to it, and I am listening to it now (the whole piece), I see the time, I see the notes. I love the sound of it, but part of the joy for me is seeing how it all flows together, how you would lead it – yes, with my hand . . . 1 2 3 4, so I can count it and know when everything comes in and how long that note was held. There is an Allman Brothers song, Revival. It begins with an instrumental introduction, then the drum does this little thing right before they begin to sing. I almost always back it up several times to hear it and picture the timing! There is a Dick Dale song that has this piano run that comes in about halfway through. It is emphasized the first time then falls into the background for the rest of the song. Yep, I back it up repeatedly to hear that as well!

Second, I listen to the words. The lyrics, even the title of the song, is so important. Obviously, I can overlook this since I love Hawaiian and Irish music and am not particularly fluent in either language. But it is the words that attract me to a song. I will listen to it till I know them. I will look them up. I have untold numbers of files of lyrics to the songs I have. It bothers me when I can’t understand the lyrics. A simple song like Johnny Cash and June Carter’s Jackson. She is gonna wait for him behind a “Jaypan fan”. So I looked it up (a “Japan fan”). Now the song means so much more to me because I know what she is saying!

Waking Ned Devine is a great movie. And right after I watched it I ordered the CD. Awesome! There is one song on the CD that is not in the movie, Hear Me by Shaun Davey (see, the title, the author, and the performers are all important to the pleasure I derive from a song). He begins in Gaelic then switches to English. The song is beautiful by itself, but the words just magnify the beauty:

   There's winter on the islands
   The hearth is cold as stone
   Like a house deserted
   I'm roofless and alone
   Where is your voice, where is your touch,
   Your breath, your guiding flame?
   Where is the light I miss so much
   In this gently falling rain?

"Like a house deserted / I’m roofless and alone.” What a picture he has painted!

And that Carter Family song I mentioned?

My heart is sad and I'm in sorrow
For the only one I love
When shall I see him? oh, no, never
Till I meet him in heaven above

Oh, bury me under the weeping willow
Yes, under the weeping willow tree
So he may know where I am sleeping
And perhaps he will weep for me

I like the sound (I love the Carter Family), but knowing the lyrics makes it truly enjoyable. Such pathos!

I could go on and on offering examples of the lyrics and how knowing them improves the song for me. That’s how I listen to my music. Title, lyrics, author, band so important to enjoying the song. And I confess again, I see song sheets and notes in my head when I listen and I always try to find the time of the song. I am not saying that one way is better than another, just different. Mary finds pleasure in all sorts of music, which made it great for her when she was working with young people - they listened to all kinds of stuff on their road trips. And it surely helps her in living with me, as I listen to a great variety of music, most of it NOT mainstream!