How Music Changed My Life - Part 1
Music... food for the soul, the best medicine for the heart. Come and take a trip along memory lane with me...
Ahhhhh, it's time to relax,
and you know what that means,
a glass of wine, your favourite easy chair,
and of course this compact disc playing and your home stereo.
So go on, indulge yourself,
that's right, kick off your shoes, put your feet up,
Lean back and just enjoy the melodies.
After all, music soothes even the savage beasts.
'Time To Relax' - The Offspring
How One Album Changed My Life
I've always been a nice kid: a good student, a friendly daughter... you could say I was too good to be true.
I never even realized I had a dark side up until that one day. I was 16 and as innocent as any 16 year old can be. I can recall the moment that changed my entire life as if it was yesterday.
Me and a friend were sitting in her room, and she was telling me about this brand new CD she had just bought, and asked me if I wanted to listen to the music.
Some Background Info
You should know, I was 10 in 1987, so my childhood had mainly been filled with colorful pop-idols wearing rollerskates and fluorescent leg warmers; Madonna, Mel&Kim, Wham!, Rick Astley, and all that ultra commercial Stock, Aitken & Waterman music.
Fortunately, my parents were into good music, so I also grew up with lots of tunes from The Beatles (no Rolling Stones, however. My stephdad was a real Beatles fan, so the Stones were not allowed to be spoken of, lol), Simon&Garfunkel, Donovan, David Bowie, Tom Petty, Jimi Hendrix and more of what we now call 'Golden Oldies'.
All this to say, I had been listening to music, but hadn't experienced the real power that is released when you find the music that simply ís you at that point in time.
The Earth Stood Still
Back to my friend's bedroom, in the year 1993. Being 16 year olds in a country that was being taken over by far-right political parties, we were very proactive in our fight against racism. The album she introduced me to appeared to be right up our alley.
It was Bodycount's Copkiller...
A version that still included the titlesong, which had to be taken off the album afterwards.
Following its release, the song was met with strong opposition, with critics ranging from President George H.W. Bush to various law enforcement agencies, with strong demand for the song's withdrawal from commercial availability, citing concerns of promoting anti-police sentiment.
Wikipedia
To say the album rocked my world would be an understatement. The loud guitars, the dark, often almost satanical lyrics, the aggression and power behind the entire album... For me, it was the start of a new era.
I still like the album from the first till the last second, but if I would have to choose my favorite song, it would be 'Momma's Gotta Die Tonight'.
In the song, Ice-T kills his mother in a very violent way after finding out she is actually a 'racist b#tch'.
I listened to the album like a zillion times. It gave me a way to express all the rage I didn't even knew I had in me.
More
Discovering Bodycount was a turning point in my life. There was a whole new world of music out there. The next four years, I listened to grunge, hard rock metal, rapcore, punkrock,...
Bands like Clawfinger, Rage Against The Machine, Metallica, The Offspring and many more gave me the opportunity to get rid of all my anger and frustration.
I still play them sometimes when things start to pile up inside and I need a way to channel out the agression. And when I do, I scream along every single word of every single song.
There are no words to describe how releaved I feel afterwards... every time again...
Unicorns & Rainbows
When I was 20, in 1997 to be exact, my life took another huge turn. Again, music was the most important factor. But it was more than just the music.
When a friend introduced me to the psytrance scene back in the early beginnings, I knew I had found my music, my people, my tribe. At last, I found home...
But that's a story I'll save for another time. The emotions related to that music, to that entire scene, to that part of the story, are completely the opposite of the ones I described in this post, and are so complex (in a positive way) that I will need to do some long and hard thinking about how I can explain how these last 20 years in the psytrance scene have made me the beautiful person I am today.
Music Is Life!!
Images source:
Pixabay
Ahahaha that’s time to relax voice surely brought me back to Come out and play. :))
I wish I was already 10yo too at the reign of Rick Astley or Wham! :))
Being 10 years old, I was the perfect age for that kind of music, lol.
And I had the same thing with the voice. The last line of the intro
had been playing in my mind all day. That was the reason I came up with this post. Shame on me, but I couldn't really remember where it came from. At first, i thought it came from the Extreme album 'Pornograffitti', which I also liked very much at that point in time (and still do). But then I found the intro and the first thing that came to mind was 'Come Out And Play'.
Because for me, and I think for many others too, that one, together with 'Self Esteem', was the first encounter with The Offspring...
Brought me back to some great memory lane here, we are just one year apart, I guess I can why it's so familiar! :D
Glad to hear it my little freewrite post could bring back some great memories for you :0)
It definitely did just that.
After reading your post I went YouTube to get me some great song!! Thanks to you!
You're welcome. Great to hear I got some kind of butterfly effect started :0)
Hahaha... Indeed!
Music is such a strong thing! Even we aren't really aware of it, it can bring back memories where a certain thing was playing in the background and you were barely aware of it! It is such a powerful trigger! Even more so, if you were conscious of it at the time....
True. A simple tune can bring back so many memories. Nostalgia is a strange thing. There are even songs I don't really like for the song itself, but the memories that are attached to it are priceless - so I like listening to them.
I go to my playlist whenever I'm down and music just brings out another soul from within.
True. I tend to forget music has that power. And then all of a sudden I decide to listen to some music during one of my daily walks, and I can feel my mood swing. I leave home feeling down, but two blocks further I'm almost dancing instead of walking, with a big smile on my face and goosebumps all over my body :0)
Music is one thing that can "fix" a mood sometimes. Down and out, listen to a pick me up. So much music, and every part of our life it seems to change for us as we grow. I can still listen and enjoy songs from the 78 RPM Era, the 45 RPM Era, the modern Album Era (33 RPM I think), from 4 tracks to 8 tracks, reel to reel, to cassette tapes, CD's to online, music choice is great and in formats to fit everyone.
I completely agree (see my reply to @shaheerbari above).
I do enjoy digitalisation of music. I mean, I was 12 years old when I started buying CD's instead of vinyl, and quality-wise that was a huge improvement.
I LOVE THE OFFSPRING!!!
Hahaha. I loved their first album, but didn't really follow up on them afterwards...
I had a softer awakening, I was introduced to Manic Street Preachers and a bit of Korn. Only recently have I discovered the power of music, as I have a friend who shares the eclectic range of stuff they listen to and I found a few surprises in there that I liked too, like some Black Metal. Also a bit partial to 2 Cellos, as the sound of the cello just makes me melt.
Nice to meet you @simplymike. Popped over from @paulag's 1 Up 1 Down post
Hey @hopehuggs. Nice to meet you too. It appears @paulag's post actually works. I've come across some interesting people through that post. :0)
Cool to hear you've discovered the power music can have yourself. For me, it has worked miracles, during different times of my life.
Always nice to read some personal stories! And quite special that it had such a big impact.
I'm just like I always am. Which means you can already guess what I will do next.
I'm pretty fly for a white guy!
Oh nooo! The line that ruined The Offspring forever for me, lol. That song was a real turnoff at the time. Meanwhile, it has been pushed down my throat so often by the radio stations that in the end I started to like it.
You know that feeling? When you really, really don't like a song, but you hear it everywhere, and after hearing it like a thousand times, you don't mind anymore (or even worse, you know all the lyrics by heart).
The worst example of that must for sure be Bangarang by Skrillex. When I heard it the first time, I didn't even think it was music, it was just noise. 1 year later I had gotten so used to it that I didn't even switch radio stations anymore when they played it... Brainwashing, I tell ya. LOL
No I don't recognize that.
I really hate a few songs like the lambada and macarena. Those I will really never like. There are just a few more, especially Dutch ones. But I can't come up with any names now. And would be best if I don't remember them 😩
I agree. I spent three years of my life listening to the most awful Flemish music. it is really embararasinng to admit but it's the truth. Unfortunatly, I remember every second of it ,;;0(
I actually think that local music is most of the time really terrible. Did you ever hear Turkish or Bulgarian? Most of the east European countries are really a pain for your ears 😥😩
Zelfde voor veel Vlaamse en Nederlandse schlagers... :0/
Oh yes music! I can really relate to what you are talking about! I was also a very nice good girl, and then.. ;D Actually, funny enough, as an early teenager, for a little while I actually almost believed that I didn't really cared about music, not my thing.. Everyone in my school were listening to Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and stuff (I'm 9 years later than you ;D) and it just did not rock my world. Then these 2 new girls started in the class, and they liked... rock music..(?) I instantly bonded with these cool gals and suddenly I got my first guitar and spend all my afternoons with my new friends, learning to play the guitar and listening to Metallica, Soundgarden, D:A:D and lots more. How it opened up my world!
It's about finding the music that does it for you. I've never really been into the music most teenagers my age liked. And I was too stubborn to follow trends. Looking back at that, it was a shame, actually, because I missed out on some good stuff. For example, when I was like 14 or so, Nirvana released their album Nevermind. At our school, you had to listen to Nirvana or you were a nobody. So I refused to listen to it.
It took me almost 20 years before I let go of it and actually listened to their music. Only to find out it was actually pretty good, lol.
Haha, yeah that's quite a funny coincidence ;D I listened to Nirvana when I was a teenager at that time too, but everyone else were listening to pop music and I don't really think I missed out on so much...!
Probably not, lol. The nineties wasn't really a decade that should be remembered for its pop music ;0)
I can only agree with everything you're saying in your post.
Some music makes me remember, some other makes me forget.
Music is a way of expression, a mean for outpouring feelings.
You introduced me to a new band, I never heard of "Body Count" before, very controversial lyrics, I'm loving their guitars !!!
Thank you for sharing !!!
Wow. Bodycount has been such a big part of my life I can hardly imagine someone had never heard of them. I adored the 'Copkiller' album - the songs, but definitely combined with the short pieces of text that are on the album inbetween the songs, and I liked the second one 'Born Dead', but I must admit I never listened to their more recent stuff.
'Copkiller' was the right album at the right time in my life. Later on, my life got completely dominated by psytrance music.
But I still listen to it every once in a while. The guitars, the lyrics, ... everything on that album is so powerful.
Fun fact: years later, Ice-T, the lead singer, ended up playing a cop in the TV-series 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'
So far for credibility, or to say it in his own words: There goes the neighbourhood, lmao