The Power Of A Song

It's currently 6:17am, I should be sleeping at this time but I'm not. I'll pay for it later, I did try to in my defense. I was laying in bed and this song came on "Scream" by Kill Hannah. I knew it as soon as I heard the first two seconds of it, no exaggeration. It reminded me of walking to and from my high school in Topeka. Specifically the first week I had moved to Topeka and was trying to enroll there. I probably walked to that school ten times within a week. It took me forever to get enrolled. Anyway, back to the topic.

I was laying in bed and this song came on. I just started remembering when I first moved to Topeka. That song is one of many on my playlist I had for the remaining month of school that was left and the following summer. Other bands that were on my playlist were Breaking Benjamin, Fall Out Boy, Trapt, Bullet For My Valentine, Boys Like Girls, and Crossfade. I can listen to certain albums and songs by each of those bands and immediately be swept back into the streets of Topeka. I can immediately remember everything that occured those four months, good and bad.

I think it's amazing the effect that a song can have on us as humans. How one song, one band can change our entire perspective. I thought of this quote from the movie Listen To Your Heart, 

"Music's a powerful thing. A song can change your mood. Make a memory. One song can change your whole life."

That line is said at the beginning and end of the movie by each of the two main characters. I believe this quote to be true. Music is powerful, so powerful that it can go as far as to save a life even. I've been online a lot and on various websites I've seen postings about how a band saved a kid's life because their music spoke to them, it told them something, it made them feel something. That's amazing to me. 

I feel like if there was an actual disorder of being a music addict, I would fit that perfectly. I have always loved music since I was super little. I used to sing Tom Petty songs when I was five, I even went to their concert a few years later with my mom. I remember seeing Spice Girls when I was around seven or eight. From the time I was in elementary school, music has always been important to me. Whether it was blasting a stereo system I had or walking around with a cd player and three different cds. In middle school I would carry my CD player to and from school practically day. It was an addiction. I had to have my cd player and at least two cds.

I remember going to youth group and just listening to music before my youth pastor started speaking. It was always like that, before or after the youth group lesson that week. When I wasn't inside listening to my cd player or mp3 player I was outside laying on a car listening to music. I could do that for hours.

This carried on into high school. Oh, high school, such great times there was. This was when music started being even more important to me. I was not well liked at my school, this was when I was living in Kansas City before the move. A lot of things happened during those years. I had been given an mp3 player for Christmas in middle school. It wasn't until my 9th grade year I started using it.

My mp3 player was quite small, I remember the model, 512 Sansa Sandisk. Now 512 megabytes is a ridiculously small amount. At least it seems that way now to me. Every single morning in high school I would wake up early and get on the computer to update my music for that day. I had a variety of music I liked listening to and always had to prepare for the day ahead of me. Haha. So there was a constant deleting songs, downloading songs, and adding songs. It was in high school that I started listening to rock music. If I remember correctly, outside of my childhood listening experience, Three Days Grace was my first rock band.

I first heard of them when I was watching Raise Your Voice on the computer. After I heard them I  was hooked, when the movie ended I googled them and downloaded their music. Yes...I'll admit it...it was illegal. A music addict like me. Such shame. I quit doing that though. I promise.

Three Days Grace lead me to Breaking Benjamin, The Used, From First To Last, Fall Out Boy (Don't judge), Panic! At The Disco (Don't judge), among other bands. I remember a specific night I was downloading music at youth group. (We had school laptops and there was internet connection there. It was after youth group ended, don't worry.) I believe I was downloading music by The Used. One of my youth leaders asked me if I ever listened to Avenged Sevenfold or Bullet For My Valentine. I told him no and he told me I need to listen to A Little Piece Of Heaven by Avenged Sevenfold. I gave it a listen and was hooked. I listened to that song constantly. I was a little surprised that he listened to that, it had some interesting lyrics, I'll leave it at that.

So in addition to Three Days Grace and Breaking Benjamin, I began listening to Avenged Sevenfold and Bullet For My Valentine. I got seriously into rock my high school years along with some screamo/post-hardcore. I look back sometimes and wonder how I could stand listening to some of the screamo I did.

Music played a big part in my high school experience, at school, at home, and at youth group. I would wear my earphones around my neck during classes, as soon as classes were out they were back in my ears. If there was conflict at home I would plug my earphones into my laptop and ignore it all to the sounds of Three Days Grace. The same occurred at youth group, I would listen to music up until my youth pastor began speaking then as soon as he ended the earphones were back in my ears and would stay that way until I got home.

I remember a specific incident my sophomore year in high school. I was really into Three Days Grace by that time and I heard they were going to be in concert at the Uptown Theatre in KCMO. Well since they were my favorite band, ever, I knew I had to go. Yes, there was no debate about it, I had to go see them. I had to see the band that "saved" me.

I told my parents about the concert and they said they would try to get me tickets. Well me and my dad went there a few days later and they were sold out. I was really upset about this so when I got home I almost did something incredibly ridiculous. I'm not going to mention it here though, sorry. It was just stupid. My parents told me we could go back the night of the concert beforehand and see if anyone was selling tickets. When approaching the theater there was a line going all the way from the front door around the entire street block. It was insane. 

Well me and my mom dropped my dad off in front of the theater and went to go back down at a restaurant because of all the cars. We were walking down there and my dad was approaching us. My mom told me there would probably not be any tickets left and asked if I just wanted to go get something to eat. I remember telling her "No! Let's see if dad got any". Lol. There was no way I was not going to that concert. My dad came up to us and said there weren't any tickets left, however my mom saw his facial expressions and told him "Give her her ticket!" So he gave me it and I was so excited. It was unbelievable. 

They gave me some money and told me to meet them at the restaurant when the concert was over. My dad also got me a pretty good cut in line behind this guy and his daughter. I remember waiting in line and listening to my mp3 player just waiting for the doors to open. They opened after 30 minutes. The first thing I did once in there was head to the standing room. Now there were a lot of seats but no, I had to be as close as possible. So I hung out in the area waiting for the opening bands that were Seether and Skillet, neither of which I remember much. I remember Skillet singing "Whispers In The Dark" and that song really touched me. I then began liking them. I remember nothing that Seether sang that night. 

Eventually about an hour after those bands played Three Days Grace came on. It was amazing for me as soon as I heard the guitar play. I sang along to all the songs. During the performance an inevitable, expected moshpit was formed. I had zero concert experience except for Tom Petty and Spice Girls which don't count because there was no moshpit, obviously. Therefore I had no moshpit experience, it was hard to survive in it. I did though, through all the pushing and shoving, even the crowd surfers who I were sure were bound to fall on me. None did, by the way. It was in the middle of Seether's set that the moshpit picked up. I remember hearing from a group near me say, "Okay, now when Three Days Grace plays we all hold onto each other and push to the front." It was then I realized that I would possibly die that night, hopefully not before Three Days Grace ended their set though.

I was officially freaked out, however Three Days Grace started, I was pretty close to the security gate, about three lines of people were in front of me. I was doing well. But this is a concert, and it's Three Days Grace, people love Three Days Grace, they want to get close, when people get close, some people lose their placing, one of those people would be me. Between all the moshing and pushing to the front, I got moved pretty back from the front. It was all cool though, Three Days Grace was playing. I got asked several times by different people if I was alright, (being 4'10 at a rock concert in a moshpit tends to make people worry about you). I told them all that I was fine though.

Three Days Grace soon played "Never Too Late", the song that saved me countless times when I felt like "giving up". The song that got me through all home conflict, school conflict, and youth group conflict. That single sang did save me in high school, at least in a way. I sang along to the song, giving it everything I had, they played a few more songs and were done. I knew walking out of the theater I had one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I walked to the restaurant, my mom picked me up and I told her about the concert.

Throughout high school I went through a lot of problems and issues. Music was my hand to hold during those times. During my sophomore year, not long after I went to the concert, things began going bad. A lot of things occurred which caused a lot of things to change. My family and I soon moved to Topeka in April after we were at a breaking point. Topeka…this brings me back to the beginning of what was a blog post and is now an essay.

In Topeka when things were bad and hope was fading, I held onto music. Music got me through a lot of situations, of course you know what they say, you get through what you have to get through, you do what you have to. Had I never had problems throughout high school, who knows if music would play a big part in my life. When moving to Topeka I had almost zero friends, it wasn't really until my Junior year and I was going to a technical school that I had any. Even then they were more like acquaintances. I could say my lack of friends was from my lack of socialization and overpowering need for music and it would be true. I have used music as a type of security blanket, I used to not be able to go anywhere without it and when I had to, it was horrible for me.

I have an over-the-top example of my security blanket, It was around 7:00am, I had to begin walking to class in twenty minutes. However, there was a bit of a problem. My earphones had the rubber attachment part where you put the earbuds on them. Mine were missing off my pair. I searched the apartment for twenty minutes. My mom told me I had to go to school and I told her I couldn't find my "ear plug things". She told me to go to school anyway, I told her I couldn't go without them. She was in my grandma's downstairs apartment. Well ten minutes later and i'm still looking for them, she comes up and gives me a pair and tells me they were somebody's who I can't recall. Happily I took them and walked to school, I got there, twenty minutes late.

Yes, I would seriously not go to school until I found my ear bud pieces. Crazy, right? I'm sure it sounds ridiculous. "Who does that?" Well I do. Haha. Overall, music is a powerful thing. A song is a power thing. I've held onto music for many years and have barely loosened my grasp on it. I've kept my hand on it until I had to let it go. I remember when I first started going to youth group, this was also around my junior year. When I started going I would always have my earphones in and not socialize. Music was my security blanket, I didn't need to talk to anyone. It wasn't until there was a conversation about CIY (youth conference) that I realized I was going to have to interact there or I wouldn't get anything out of it. I was a bit offended at the time but now realize I had to be told that. 

So during the week at CIY I left my mp3 player on the dresser and didn't touch it, all week. The longest I was without music willingly. I got a lot out of CIY that year. I learned a lot of things. On a specific night the theme was worship, it makes sense that this was the most notable night for me being based on music. During one of the activities we had to make something out of playdough, I made an ipod. Surprising? Not at all. At the evening session we had just watched a video of people worshiping things, people and even themselves. It was shocking for me how people could just worship things like that. After that video I was really thinking about worship. The group at CIY was then to take the playdough objects and set them by the doors and go outside. While outside I was really upset because I realized all those years I was worshipping music and even though it was Christian music, it wasn't any better. I was still using music to help get me through things.

It began to rain while outside and I was deep in thought about my actions. I felt horribly about them and wouldn't talk to anyone.I was prayed for though by a youth leader and a girl in my youth group.  It was right before a prayer was prayed that I began to interact again. After the prayer we went back inside the building. Inside the doors were our objects covered with saran wrap, we were to walk on them and crush them and then put our hands in water as a sign of being clean from our idols we had made. During this night of worship my eyes were opened up and I began to really worship God. I went to the front of the stage during the worship and was really into it. 

During the service we were asked if we had to talk to someone about our idols to do it. I talked to one of my youth sponsors about how I was worshipping music without even realizing it. I was once again prayed for. After the service was over I felt God was telling me to speak to my youth group about my own thoughts and what I was doing wrong. This was a huge 360 for me because I don't talk to people really so for me to talk to a youth group I hardly even know and had just started going to about eight months beforehand was a big deal.

I won't go into details about what happened after that but it was good. God really used me through that experience. After that week at CIY I began leaving my ipod at home instead of taking it to church and youth group. I began (very) slowly interacting with other people there. This brings me to my current life, I'm currently in college and music still has a grasp on me. I am still almost always 90% of the time listening to music. The other 10% of the time I'm in classes. I listen to music before going to classes, in-between classes, after classes, waiting for meals, while walking to various places, I listen to music while sleeping even. Anyway…I've been told once again I need to loosen up on the music. It's a bit hard though because that's who I am, my music tends to define me as a person. I know it's not bad to listen to music, but when it's kind of getting in the way of interacting in society…It may be a little bad.

So…Yeah…I like how I went from 

"Music's a powerful thing. A song can change your mood. Make a memory. One song can change your whole life." 

to being sort of anti-music…Which I am totally not. I really just wanted to say that music is a powerful thing.  A song change your life. A band (Boys Like Girls) can bring back a memory as simple as walking to a school. A song (Hosanna-Hillsong) can remind you of an amazing experience you had. I won't go as far as saying a song (Never Too Late-Three Days Grace) can literally save you, but I will definitely say a song (Until The End-Breaking Benjamin) can lessen the blow that life can cause sometimes and help a person to see things in a good light when there's nothing but misery happening and trouble after trouble. When those silent moments are killing you, you can put on a song and be transported back in time.

For every song's there's a memory waiting, for every song there's a meaning behind it, music is a powerful thing when you know how and when to use it.

I'll end with this quote once again because I do still believe it to be true. (Also, it's 7:41, i've been writing for an hour and a half, amazing...)

"Music's a powerful thing. A song can change your mood. Make a memory. One song can change your whole life."