Music is My Religion

Creative Nonfiction Piece in the works. I have written this as one of my two pieces for my final assessment for my Creative Non-Ficiton subject. This is a second draft. Feedback welcome.

The dog days are over

The dog days are done

Can you hear the horses

'Cause here they come

There are lyrics and songs out there that describe every person’s feelings, actions and events at every point in time. You just have to find them. And to find solace, you just have to love them.

Music is my religion. It’s a phrase many people quote since Jimi first spoke those words out loud. The sound that surrounds me when I listen to songs feels like a bubble coming down encircling me and that space is sacred, holy and safe. When I needed it, I could put my iPod into the dock, with the plug behind it pushing it out at the odd angle it needed to make the faulty wires work, and turn it up to level 10 and the music would swirl out. Swirl out and around me, wrapping around me like the comforting arms of a constant friend. But each religion has met a challenge, each one has risen and fallen, masses find faith and lose it. For each person, faith can be found and lost; it can be dimmed and brightened; challenged and reaffirmed.

Music had always been my path to calmness and serenity. As a kid it was easy happiness that I found in music. When my mother was out at night and it was just my dad and I at home, he would pour himself a glass of scotch, offer me a sip and he would put on a Steppenwolf or ACDC record, turn the speakers up really loud and place me on top of his shoulders. The bass would vibrate through the floor and dad would strut around the house whilst I sang along to John Kay, Bon Scott and Brain Johnson reaching for the roof, pretending I was a giant imbued with confidence and joy from the music filling the house. As I grew older music became a pillar in my life. It held me up when no one else could- songs held the words I needed to carry the weight of reality. During year 12, when I was exhausted from the hours of studying; classes, excessive amounts of sport and the lack of friends and family to support me, if I turned on All Time Low or Cobra Starship or Mumford and Sons, after an hour, I could stop crying and get up off my floor. I could pull over my Russian Revolutions book and once again soldier through the piles of readings and essays. More recently, music became elation. When I have the time to listen to music, just listen to it or dance to it without writing essays or researching assignments, I could stand and feel energy seeping into me. Energy to live, to fight, to continue with whatever my days hold; my three jobs or essays whose word limits never seem within reach, fights with my boyfriend or yelling matches with my mother. These times can be made even more potent when mixed with alcohol and friends, when almost any song, no matter the quality, can fill you. But alcohol and company isn’t needed to lower worry; music alone has been enough to bring that smile to my face, to bring that feeling of harmony back to my body. 

Sanctuaries and solace can be created anywhere. Just turn up the music, open your heart and respond to the music. But our temples are constantly on the move. Our temples are the concert halls and the clubs, the arenas and the pubs. Every night, every day and anytime is can be our Sunday morning. Concerts, where others like me, who found support and hope in the same musician, the same lyrics, the same group, would gather to revel in the power and sensation that can fill a building.  We go to a venue and all of us who delight in in this musician’s, this group’s, music gather to listen to their words live. They don’t preach at us like the churches do. They connect to us with words and sounds, melody and lyricism, combine. Sometimes, I attend a concert feeling down or stressed about the amount of work I was faced with, or weighed down by family troubles, but when I was in there with my mother or a friend I would be taken by the music. I can only imagine what the ancients who believed in magic felt like, when they danced on the solstice, but when I go to a concert and screamingly sing the lyrics along with the singers, when I go to a concert and dance to the beat, sway to the rhythm, I imagine that I feel a glimmer of what they felt like. Energy is raised in those buildings and taken in by every person there who show their support and love. After hours of raising energy, singing and dancing, smiling and laughing, I walk our rejuvenated. I walk out smiling and free, remembering why I loved that band in the first place. I have time enough to deal with life, because when I leave a concert I have the peace and time and power to do anything I need to. Except for the Florence and the Machine concert 2012.  

Back in February, for my birthday, my boyfriend had bought me two tickets (one for me and one for himself) to go see Florence and the Machine. It was about three months too late to get good seats, our tickets stated our seats gave us an “impaired viewing”. But it didn’t matter. I’d known about the concert for three months but, being horribly broke, hadn’t acquired tickets to the band I’d been listening to every day on repeat. I’d even gotten Aaron, my boyfriend, into them before he left of Europe for 6 weeks and he had been as ensnared as I had. Together we would type the lyrics to each other across skype, have their lyrics as our statuses on everything (facebook, skype, whatsapp, twitter) and their play count was rapidly climbing- so it didn’t matter if we had “impaired viewing”, we would be there for the sound. It had always been a strong belief of mine that you didn’t have to see a thing to be entranced and inspired by music. And that being my delivered line whenever I started snoozing off at a classical music showcase didn’t mean I had any less conviction in what I was saying. Music is about what you feel and hear, sight has little affect. I’d never been into the bands themselves- never had I tirelessly looked up band members and stalked their photos and names and birthdates and starsigns. Sure, I had posters up on my walls but that was in tribute to their sound, the way they made me feel, the power they had in my life. So I got the tickets in my birthday card and stuck them on my corkboard where I could walk past them every day. 

The expectation and excitement that had built in me for the three months between the release dates of the tickets and actually receiving the tickets, was replaced by fear and apprehension in the weeks that lead up to the actual concert. Aaron and I were no longer the happy pair we had been throughout his trip in Europe, his month in Melbourne and his move to Canberra. He would get annoyed at me for not “communicating”, I would get annoyed at him for his hypocrisy, him reading my text messages over my shoulder and his jealousy of the time I spent with my friends. But that wasn’t the catalyst the sent our relationship to a hellish place.  Despite his frequent trips to Melbourne, his distance became the issue. It wasn’t fair to him, I recognised that, but I couldn’t help my nature. My once loyal attraction to him, and only him, had waned. We’d come to a point where we were fighting every day, where we were crying over each other and fighting with our friends because of the inaccurate information they had to passed to one of us. We discussed a resolution. Not wanting it to end we said we’d struggle through the next month and a half; the concert, his work ball and my exams.  I wasn’t sure I wanted him coming to the concert but he’d given me an extended hand in maintaining my place at his work ball. There was no reasoning that I could give him that he would understand if I asked him to step back so I could take someone else with me. 

I wish I’d changed my mind. 

Before leaving for the concert I’d had a shower. When I came out, I checked my phone to find a new message. Without a notification telling me I had a new message. My trust was knifed but I didn’t say anything. I thought if it didn’t come up we could get through the night with my love as a comfort, with the music reaching out. 

The concert was exhausting, I was battling through too many emotions and too much energy was being directed and channelled in the wrong way.  We would quietly speak through our argument in between songs. The songs would raise me to me feet and make me dance. Energy was rising and being put into my emotions but it wasn’t settling them. How could it settle what was still happening? Line after line discussed alongside a rising feeling of being torn in two directions till I was on the edge of splitting into two people. I had to stifle my tears when they spilled over. I tried to shut myself out, I tried to hear the music but ignore the feelings and energy that surrounded me. My tears flowed down my face and all I wanted was my sanctuary back. Aaron was right next to me and he wasn’t moving. He, who I had once loved, had invaded my one constant, my one temple and pillar, my one comfort. I tried to build my space away from him, tried to build the bubble that would bring my solace so I could enjoy the rest of the concert.  I closed my eyes. He reached through and asked what the hell I was doing. When I stood, he pulled me back to my seat. The fragile walls I constantly tried to build, to strengthen with the energy swelling around me were battered by my boyfriend. And I feared the one song that I knew would be coming at the end, the one song that was supposed to bring hope that I knew, on this night,  would be a horrific lie. 

We held hands and sang along. We smiled with dead eyes and no true emotion. The hope and love that rooted in everyone else, brushed through me. In through the chest, out through the back; it touched me long enough to remind me of every other concert that had left me elated, rejuvenated and hopeful. It touched me and did not leave me elated but confused, run down and hurt. The feeling of being just out of reach of what you so desperately need. It was like pouring out your heart to a friend online and having them send you an emoticon hug. The comfort you could’ve felt in those arms of that friend makes you feel so much worse off when the thought is extended without the action followed through. I walked out feeling hollow and cheated. Florence and the Machine had been wonderful, I was sure of that. But my companion had not. My companion had made me lose an opportunity of renewal, something that could’ve potential left me with a clear mind that would’ve been able to fix our situation.  Music itself could always reach me, could always build on my faith but concerts are like a ritual, an event to mark the turning of seasons. It’s a baptism of sorts, a winter solstice, a spring equinox; cathartic rituals that end with a renewal of the core. And I missed out on something that is necessary to my core. So I step back I turn to the little patience I have that is telling me to wait. I try believe I need the pain I have now to get through the coming days, it will fuel my strength that is hardened by recorded scripture. 

Music is my religion. It is challenged and it is reaffirmed. There are lyrics and songs that describe every person’s feelings, actions and events at any given point in their life. You just have to find them. And to find solace, you just have to love them.

You, you are my best friend

You are my everything, so don’t leave me now

You, you are the best of me

The reason that I believe, so don’t leave me now

But it’s cold, cold, cold, cold when the music dies

It’s all black and white and there’s no sunrise

When the music dies