Making Friends with Music Again

Yesterday, while walking the dog I listened to my music app instead of my usual audio book. Actually, I hit the music app by accident and the sounds of Tracy Chapman filled my ears. She just appeared there at random, greeting me with her sonorous voice, singing of smoke and ashes…

I don’t know why that album started to play but it took me back in time. New Beginnings came out when I was in college, a time in my life filled with many beginnings and endings. It played on constant cycle in those days at U.C. Davis, along with Counting Crows‘ August and Everything After.

So I took the long way through my neighborhood, both reminiscing and making new connections as we sang along together. I realized that a song can have new meaning as we evolve, applying to both our past circumstance and our current situations.

I also realized that my tendency since I quit drinking is to not listen to music that moves me. It is similar to how it took me awhile to visit places that are tied up in drinking memories. I am now revisiting them and making new sober associations but for a long time I needed to stay away. Much of the music of my past carries with it a strong emotional charge, and getting sober made me anxious to leave all of the emotionality that accompanies drinking behind. It’s like tip-toeing passed old ghosts.

My college days were full of music and drinking and the emotions that accompany those pursuits. To hear Abba’s “Dancing Queen” or Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” is to be back with my friends, up all hours, with the main objective of being carefree, wild and crazy. (Just to clarify, those songs were still considered “oldies” back in those days. I did not go to college in the seventies.)

As my drinking career progressed, I saw music as a way to magnify a mood that was already amplified by my state of inebriation. And most of those moods consisted of sadness, nostalgia, or the want to be someone or somewhere else. The Eagles “Lying Eyes,” Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer,” Simon and Garfunkel’s “America.” Most of those songs reminded me of my childhood and my parents’ drunken backyard barbecues. An escape back in time, into someone else’s longing to escape.

“…And the moon rose over an open field…”

I listened to contemporary music as well. During my nights as a single mom when I didn’t have my boys, Coldplay, the Foo Fighters, and Three Doors Down were often my companions…along with all the wine, and all the emotions…it became a crowded party of one.

It makes sense to me why the music needed to die for a time. No longer Miss. American Pie, when I got sober I focused on clear-headedness and rational thought and presence. Not much room for or desire to be swept up by emotion or nostalgia. Not much room to brush passed those old ghosts.

However, when the poetic and moving words of Tracy Chapman travelled through my earbuds yesterday, I felt a stirring inside. A reawakening of my love of music. I found the space inside for those much-loved songs to settle. Along with the knowledge that I can now listen to an old song and understand a new truth.

That’s what good music does. Words of truth are timeless, and can revisit you throughout your life and still be relevant and beautiful. They may need to be silenced for a time, while you gather yourself up and emerge as something new. But when you’re ready, they will be there to hold you, and you will embrace, just like a long-lost friend.

I will leave you with this gem of a song from Ms. Chapman that I dusted off during my walk yesterday and basked in the timelessness of its truth. It’s called “Cold Feet,” and it’s as much poem as it is song. Its story, filled with both figurative language and realism, awakened my desire to teach and connect with at-risk youth. I share this with you, as a tribute to a talented artist and as my recommitment to experiencing the dimension and beauty that music brings to a life.

I’m including both the lyrics and the song itself. If you want to be really moved, listen to the audio version.

"Cold Feet"
There was a little boy once upon a time
Who in spite of his young age and small size knew his mind
For every copper penny and clover he would find
Make a wish for better days the end of hard times
For no more cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet

His clothes were always clean
His face was always scrubbed
There was food on the table enough to fill him up
His house was full of life - His house was full of love
But when winter days arrived
There was never money enough to shod his cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet

He grew up to be a worker determined to succeed
He made a life for himself, free from worldly wants or needs
But with nobody to share the life he'd made
No body to keep him warm at night
When he'd go to sleep he'd sleep alone with his cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet

One night he walked the street looking to the heaven's above
Searching for a shooting star a benevolent God
When a woman passing by brushed his arm
He turned and found love
He then wished for the courage to ask this stranger
Who she was to not have cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet

She liked the party life and wanted the finer things
So he promised more than he could buy
And he promised her the sun and moon to not have cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet

He worked day and night his fingers to the bone
Hi worried mind guilty conscience drive him on
He can't give her what she needs
He wants to give her what he thinks she wants
Her sad-eyed face, his empty pockets drive him on and his cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet

He'd struggled all his life to be an honest man
Proud that the dirt on his palms was the soil of the land
But some guys he knew from high school days
Said they had a plan to get rich quick
And they could count him in if he don't have cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet

He thought about their offer accepted it without qualms
Dreamt about the life he'd buy
The comfort that would come without cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet

He decided to tell his wife things would soon turn around
He said the little boy is dead
A man stands with you now without cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet
Without cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet

He thought he'd set his clock right, He though he'd read his watch
He left in such a hurry he didn't think to wish for luck
Makes no difference if you're early, No difference if you're late
When you're out of time, The flowers have been laid
You're six feet underground
With cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet