Lost in music
On Friday morning, I turned on the car radio hoping to listen to some good songs on my way to work. I don’t always. Some mornings I’m happy driving in silence, but on my 28 minute journey, there was too much chat and not enough music. Just one song was played. One song! And it wasn’t even a very good one. It left me a bit grumpy and got me thinking about why I wanted to hear some music that morning, and how important it actually is to me.
I don’t really ever feel stressed, but I do have a big job, two daughters, a home, a family to consider and a permanently massive to-do list. So I’ve started to notice that listening to music is my escape. I can feel my shoulders drop and my mental load clear. It has a physical impact on me.
Once at my desk, I found the playlist of the show we’d been to see the evening before, popped my earphones in and instantly felt happier. We’d been to London, a week night extravagance you may think, but we’d managed to get £15 tickets to see We Will Rock You at the Coliseum. In a returning stint on the West End, Ben Elton’s opening monologue reminded me that this is a funny show with epic music.
There are some songs that you recognise from the very first note, and the Queen back catalogue that We Will Rock You is based on includes some of the most famous songs ever written. The music starts, the anticipation builds, the performers start to sing. The collective sound is magical. To let yourself get totally lost in music is escapism at its best.
It was the second time in a week that I’d been truly consumed by music, the other was Elton John’s headline set at Glastonbury. I watched it a day later than everyone else (as I was travelling home from Istanbul), and I’d heard the hype. But it lived up to it, and some. What a career! What a performance! The ethereal quality of the Rocketman rendition that closed the show was utterly sublime.
Back at my desk, I realised that I’d worked my way through my to-do list at pace. The music was carrying me along, giving me creative inspiration. This is new for me. When I was at university, I had to write in silence. Utter silence. It would take me ages to get the perfect opening sentence to my essays and I needed a clear mind to do so. These days (some years on, mind), I have to put on some music if I want to sit and write. And now, I don’t even really think about what I’m putting down on paper, I just let the music help me. I only then turn it off to polish and edit. It clearly taps into a part of my subconscious that I don’t massively understand, but it truly is my tonic. I can get lost in music.
Maybe that’s why, as I’m getting older, I recognise how much I love a good festival or a musical because it’s physically doing me some good (I just need to ditch the wine and beers that often goes with it…!). Music is now omnipresent in our house; it’s a massive part of our lives. Sophie (our eldest) has Taylor Swift on repeat as the soundtrack to her life (please God let us get Eras Tour tickets), and Lily (our youngest) has a born love of singing. Loudly.
So why has this been a realization all of a sudden? Maybe it’s because I’m more stressed than I think and I’ve noticed what helps. Or, maybe it’s because as you get older you become clearer about what matters. In a busy world with busy lives, you carve out time for what matters. And to me, music matters. To be able to get truly lost in music is one of life’s gifts and long may that continue.
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