The Power of Words Plus Music

"Everyone deserves music, sweet music."
—Michael Franti

One of the ways that "music" tends to be defined is as something like: intentionally organized sound that affects the emotions. I think that is a reasonable way to define it, as far as it goes. There can be no doubt that music affects the emotions—this is largely the reason that movie scores exist.

I seem to have particularly strong emotional reactions to music, at times. It is not uncommon, for instance, for the beauty of a Mozart piano concerto to move me to tears. Or for a Django Reinhardt tune to lift my spirits remarkably. And the first time that I listened to the three CDs of David Bowie's Sound + Vision collection—his first releases on CD—on the day that they were released...well, that was a day that I really could have related to the title of the Hidden Cameras song "Music is My Boyfriend", were it not for the fact that I would need to wait nearly two decades for that song to be released.

What music doesn't really do is convey any explicit meaning. Sure, if someone tells us that a certain piece of instrumental music tells the story of a doe lapping at a gentle brook, then hearing a sound and becoming tense, then fleeing for her life from some predator, we may agree that we can hear that in the music. We may be able to picture it perfectly in our mind, and that may be what that piece of music means to us from then on. But the music doesn't actually tell us that story, it just fits that story well, like a movie score may fit the scenes and moods of the film that it accompanies, well.

Words do convey explicit meaning, at least they try to. Sometimes they do a very good job of doing so. Sometimes the meaning that words convey evokes a strong emotional response. That's good, because as human beings we seem to find it very important to share our emotions with each other.

So what happens when emotive words are combined with emotive music? Well, you can get something very powerful. Very powerful indeed. Things like national anthems will generally aim for majestic and/or martial sounding music, and lyrics to match. If done well, they will evoke in the listener feelings of awe, pride, patriotism. The best love songs have music that, in and of itself, makes the heart swell, combined with lyrics that truly remind us of what it feels like to be in love. There are songs that have (to me) ugly music. Music of rage. Music of despair. When these tunes are combined with powerful lyrics, they can be devastating.

And some songs are beautiful and sad. I used to live with a guy named Joey—he's a wonderful person and a wonderful singer. He sings plenty of lead, but he likes to sing harmony. There was one song that we tried to sing together a couple of times—me on lead, him on harmony—that I really just couldn't ever get through without literally getting choked up. "Cranes Over Hiroshima" by Fred Small. The (true) lyrics are sad, and also hopeful. The music is melancholy, but also rousing. It still really affects me.

I'm grateful that people like Fred Small (and Phil Ochs, Joni Mitchell, Michael Franti, and many more) write songs that are instructive, inspiring, important. Even if I can't always manage to sing them myself.

I'm glad that music can move me so. I hope it moves other people as much, or more, and I hope that it does so in positive ways.