I’m 35 and Just Learning To Love Music Now

Think About Things, why don’t ya

I’ve never been much of a music person. I know how that sounds — absurd to the max. Everybody is a music person in their own right. Whether it’s listening to the Top 40 on the radio and singing along enthusiastically every day on your commute to work, or maybe you’ve got a total hard-on for old blues music, like my mom.

Every person in the universe loves music. It’s the thing that keeps our souls moving and learning and growing.

Not me.

I grew up listening to Johnny Horton, CCR and The Steve Millar Band on repeat. This was the music of my dad’s era, and he would listen to his favourite albums religiously while drinking beer and shooting the shit with the various riggers he’d have come over after their long hauls in the great white north.

Sure, I can sing along to every word of The Battle of New Orleans and also have created a choreographed dance to go with it, but do I particularly love that song? Nope.

It’s not that I hated music; it's just that I’ve always been a little indifferent.

I could take it or leave it. I never had that life-altering experience of a song changing who I was as a human being. I guess for a while there in my late teens, I became a little obsessed with The Rocky Horror Picture Show and would belt Sweet Trasvestite at the top of my lungs while walking to work, but that was more for the showiness of it.

I’m in love with my own voice, you see.

It had always been stories rather than songs that contributed to my various soul-changing experiences. I know what you music-lovers are saying into your screens right now, “But songs ARE stories!” And yes, I get it, but I’m not going to get into that with you right now. This article is already becoming far too long.

I was and continue to be a voracious reader. The stories that I’d consume would save me from my often scary and poorly advised life. I made some real shit decisions in my youth. When the consequences of my actions would inevitably fall upon me, it was books like Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Celestine Prophecies and anything written by Stephen King that would save me from my melancholy.

I’m not a multitasker, so reading while listening to music is a no-go for me. Similarly, I can’t write while music is playing. Or, by extension, think of much else while a catchy song rings out in the background. Maybe that’s why I’ve always steered clear of music as an escape — I simply wouldn’t be able to get anything done.

It’s only been in recent months that I’ve started listening to music regularly.

In the past six months, I started writing over at Vocal Media, and they are big on playlist articles. If you haven’t heard, a playlist article is where you create a collection of songs and then tell the reader how you feel about those songs. How those songs, played in a particular way, may change their life.

I was dubious.

Who wants to read about music? Then I made a few jokey playlist articles, and I realized that everyone wants to read about music. Because — besides me and my strange ways — music is a universal language.

I began reading the playlist articles more and more, then I downloaded Spotify and began listening to the playlists included in these various articles on offer. That’s when my obsession began.

Now when my husband groans and says, “Oh my god are you listening to that song again?!” I simply tell him that it’s Emily’s fault, and he can blame her!

He then replies, “Lindsay, I don’t know Emily.”

Emily Keeler is an amazing writer who can make readers feel feelings that they didn’t even know they had with the words she slaps upon the screen. I also absolutely love her taste in music. When I started reading her playlist posts, that is the precise time I understood with complete clarity that my ideas on music would never be the same.

That was also the time I was shown (by one of Emily’s articles) Daði Freyr’s “Think About Things” and have never stopped listening to this song ever since.

Author’s note: I’d like to add that I had to watch this video three times in a row before going back to writing this piece. This is the extent of my current obsession.

5 AM: My eyes pop open, and I am helpless to go back to sleep. This isn’t because of the music, but instead due to the fact that I am a glutton for punishment and do not enjoy sleeping. I sneak out of bed and fire up my Spotify. I turn on the song before even leaving the bedroom. My husband whimpers and pulls the pillow over his head.

5:30 AM: I get in the shower, phone propped on the countertop, blaring Think About Things while I sleepily cleanse my dancing body.

6 AM: Making my children’s school lunches, I listen and sing along to the upbeat tempo that has changed my very existence.

7:20 AM: I drive my son to school and say, “Oh man, Lars, have you listened to this song — this will get you in the headspace for another day at school!” Much like his father, he rolls his eyes but listens dutifully.

8:00 AM: I do the same routine while driving my daughter to school.

9 AM: I’ve started actually getting ready for my day by curling my hair and applying makeup. This is not because I feel the need to pretty myself up, but instead, it is an excuse to listen to “the song” repeatedly.

10 AM: Walking the dog, I now do not listen to my audio distractions via earbuds but blare this song loudly from my phone as Lucy and I stroll down the sidewalk. I feel that everyone should listen to Think About Things and watch the wonder of me dancing along (poorly)to this amazing song.

11 AM: I try to begin writing, but all I can think about is the song. I want to listen to it again and again.

It is Noon. I am breaking my fast. Intermittent fasting is a bitch, and I keep drinking beer in the evenings, so I can’t eat until 12 PM most days. As I boil my not-quite-breakfast eggs, I listen and sway my hips and tap my toes to the beat, wondering how I ever lived without this song in my life.

By the end of most days, I’ve listened to “Think About Things” no less than twenty times, all the while regretting that I didn’t listen to it more.

I get it now. I understand how music can change our lives. How we can cling onto some new beat and seemingly allow it to overtake our very existence. I’m hardpressed to say that this new routine will ever change because lately, since allowing music back into my life, I’ve been notably happier.

I’m dancing all of the time. I feel good about even the bad stuff in my life. I have this newfound optimism that is exceptionally uncharacteristic for me.

And I’m producing more writing than I ever have in my life.

Sure not all of it is excellent material, but the thing is, I’m creating words on a page. I’m exercising my right to write, and that has changed the game monumentally.

By allowing myself to fall into the grips of music, I’ve managed to open up some dusty creativity nook in my soul, and now the words are just falling out of me. That feels so good.

I never thought I’d be writing an article about my love for music. I just had never seen myself as a person who could craft such a story. Granted, this isn’t really going into any logistics of this song which has stolen my heart. Which is to say, I’m no Paul Combs when it comes to writing about the musical genius that is put out into the world. But we can’t all be as amazing as Paul, okay!

However, writing an entire piece on my love for Think About Things seems like a good starting point.

What’s the song that has stolen your heart?

The one you can’t stop listening to? The one driving your family or roommates to consider moving out because if they hear the lyrics one more time, their heads may very well explode upon impact, yet you still crank this tune in the early mornings to get the good vibes flowing?

What’s your song?