Living In Rhythm

So, I've been thinking about love as it pertains to music. Not like, 'love songs' or 'breakup songs', or any kind of song, really.

We've all got those artists and songs, right? The ones that take you back to a certain relationship. Those songs are either difficult or really easy to listen to, depending on the memories they carry. For me, as someone who loves music, I think it's pretty telling, of all my relationships, that I've never really selected a 'song'. And not just because I think that's kind of lame. I just can't ruin a perfectly good song because I associated it with a bad relationship. Or at least a relationship that didn't deserve a good piece of music as its soundtrack.

I'm not so much talking about that kind of thing right now, though. I'm just talking about music, at any given moment, and the people you get to share it with.

What brought this on was my first listen to the Tedeschi Trucks Band's Revelator. I've been anticipating this album since I heard it was in the works, and then no music stores in Ottawa were carrying it (assholes) so I had to have it special ordered. I got it about two weeks after the release date, which sucked, but whatever.

As I was driving home from a night of hanging out with friends, I tore the plastic off the record and played it for the first time. As I'm sitting in my car, driving home in the dark, I started thinking to myself, "God, I wish I was listening to this record with someone right now." That's not meant to make me sound lonely or desperate; I am neither. It's just one of those situations where I love something so much that I want to share it with someone who will love it as much as I do.

I've since been thinking a lot about this, the idea of sharing a love of something with someone, in real time. I recommend books and music like nobody's business, but that's after I've read or listened and can riff off a list of reasons, quotes or songs or intricacies that make what I'm recommending a sure thing. That's not at all the same as sitting next to someone and hearing the line, "He was born to love me. I was raised to be his fool," for the first time. It's not like hearing a slide guitar and looking to the person on your right in the car and sharing that look; that look you have when something's amazing and two people recognize that at exactly the same moment.

This, of course, doesn't have to be a romantic love. I suppose it doesn't have to be a love at all, really. I guess I'm just the kind of person who doesn't really thinks it matters what you love, as long as you love something.

I don't know that any of this even makes sense. I guess I just want to experience more things in the presence of someone who understands exactly what we're experiencing together. Which means that I'll constantly be reminded of that person. Then again, given my track record, I'm starting to think I might not mind being reminded of that person. I've been pretty good at keeping people and music separate. Maybe the fact that I'm starting to want to put the two together means something more than I have even figured out yet.

This post is archived under derek trucks, susan tedeschi, tedeschi trucks band