After a break from music, it takes only the briefest of re-initiation ceremonies to bring all the voices flooding back. On the right kind of day, it isn't too much of a hyperbole to say that various combinations of lyric & music* consume most of my waking thoughts. (I can only speculate about dream time, of course.) This has been true ever since I started listening to music seriously. All that has changed over the years is the nature of the songs in my head, on account of my taste slowly improving :-) This state of mind has historically fostered marathon listening & obsessing sessions, and when it's really too much to handle even some form of writing. I don't think I'll ever decipher the mysterious power of song, which bodes well if it continues to elicit such reactions from me.

So complete is this mental take-over that I dwell on old dreams of being involved with this form somehow. But blessed with neither the talent nor emotional resilience** that it requires, I end up in pretty much the same place I've always been. I can, and should, set my sights on much more modest goals, though. Getting around to playing an instrument would be a positive step no matter the final outcome; I can only imagine the pleasure of one's own guitar strum providing the backdrop to a rendition of a John Prine song, say. I'd also like to better focus my writings on music (meta posts like this are exempted from any criticism ;-)). I realize why it's difficult to make much headway on these things, though: it's far easier to listen to music than make something from one's reaction to it! In light of this, I would say that at the very least, a basic hope is to become a "better" listener, which you may interpret however you like. But I don't use the word "obsession" lightly in this context. This music is pretty powerful stuff when it gets into my head. So I have a strong sense that even being the best listener in the world won't be enough for me.

* I put lyric before music on purpose, because that appears to be the ingredient I have the most affinity towards; while classical melodies sometimes run through my head, it's never with the same intensity as any of the songs that make it to this blog's recurring lists.

** I really don't know how one of my favourite songwriters (guess who?) managed to reconcile his hypersensitivity with the harshness of performing music in public. In an interview, he mentioned something similar to what I wrote above, namely that his obsession with music, combined with his realization that he could do something that no one else was doing, got to the point of being "ridiculous". As he put it, it ended up almost as if there was no other way but for him to get up on stage and start performing.