"Let's roll the windows down"





"The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too."
 - Saint Teresa of Avila

 Remember Compact Discs? Those shiny, sweet little circles that seemed to not only turn the time but our happiness? Remember how it felt in your hand? Remember what it meant to pick a song and hold it in your hand?

 I still buy CDs every now and then. Sometimes I wonder about the rising generation behind me. I wonder how they will ever understand a scratch or skip in a song. Records and CDs can get damaged and the song reflects it. They play on with their scars. Each time you listen you remember that this one's been loved, hurt or just lived.

Ipods and Spotify only know a different kind of skip. They only skip ahead. They only pass over a lesser song. Yet a CD makes us endure that flaw--we have to listen through the blemish.

I find myself listening to old songs and placing the artificial skip in subconsciously. At first I thought well not everyone will experience the skips. We have better technology and that annoyance is a lost art. It made me nostalgic and a little sad. Then I realized I'd never hear those songs without  the skip. I have memorized them that way.

 Now I am not making a plea that we all buy CDs. I am not saying deny the latest technology. I am not saying music can only be understood through old mediums.

I am reminding myself that the skips make the journey.

 I dropped that CD when I was 11 and it never played the same. My brother borrowed it without the case and the car door got the better of it. The journey makes the music fit--without it we just skip ahead.

I, like that rotating, silver disc would like to play on the way I was meant to. If that means I've got a few scratches then I want people to hear my songs still. So maybe old songs are worth appreciating because maybe they're about a little more than we remember.

 Maybe it's time to remember how things were before they were automatic.









"The boy only wanting to give mother something,
And all of her roses had bloomed.
Looking at him as he came rushing in,
knowing her roses were doomed.
All she could see were some thorns buried deep,
And tears that he cried as she tended his wounds.

And she knew it was love, it was what she could understand.
He was showing his love and that's how he hurt his hands."
The Hand Song, Nickel Creek

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts