I read a great editorial today that got me thinking about music. Writer Steve Guttenberg asked; why can’t you listen to music?
Basically the man talked about the idea of the act of enjoying music. Setting aside a unit of time for the sole purpose of consuming music. He talked about people that go to rock shows and talk through the music sets or get locked into their phones texted away. I must say that that is both a major pet peeve of mine and also something I have been guilty of. Strange but true.
I am fortunate that my line of work surrounds me in music. I am not terribly funny or any more interesting than anyone else. I got into radio because it was one of the few jobs I could think of that paid me to do the one thing I loved to do. Listen to music. I was like, “they pay people to sit in a room and jam out rock & roll all day… and fucking people still fight wars?”
As a kid in highschool, I’d fire a CD into my discman every night before bed and listen to a whole album, often twice before going to bed. The same record would live on my bedside table for weeks. CDs were like $25 back in the mid-90s!
I have a vivid memory of laying on the floor of the living room in my parents house one hot summer afternoon and listening to Big Wreck’s “That Song” over and over and over.
The hobby or habit of listening to music for the sake of the experience continued into adulthood except girlfriends put a real crimp into music time. they always want your undivided attention at bedtime. Hard to bury my head into headphones when there are breasts to bury that head into.
Now that I am married guy with kid… everyone goes to bed and some nights I get left to my own devices. Believe me, internet porn was fun again for awhile… but the call of the record has crept back into my life. Lately I have been finding myself decompressing to music as I lay on my couch at some weird hour.
Some nights I pull out old favourites, others, something totally random or new.
If you love music, and you’re not setting aside music listening time… you’re doing yourself a major disservice.
Go with yourself.
The Morning After 
Yep, I fully agree. Music is always on around me but it’s rare that I can give my 100% to serious listening before the wee hours so that’s what I do super late late or while falling asleep.
Besides, the stuff I truly want to hear AND listen (ie. Baths … lots of Baths stuff is work (fun work of course) to actually hear and ‘get’) is better straight up on the ears in the dark rather than in the car en route to school or on the home stereo while washing dishes.
The way I see it is … music is just like real love – you gotta give it time and attention and in return music will give and love right back.
I really wish I did that. Really and truly. But I have to be honest and report that I don’t – at least, not very often.
I’ve almost never been able to *just* listen to music. I love music, but I experience it as a soundtrack, if that makes sense. I can’t just sit and listen to music and do nothing else; I get stir crazy. I can read for hours without twitching but music has never been something I can concentrate on exclusively.
There are exceptions. Just last weekend, I sat and listened to the Mumford & Sons album, doing nothing else but reading the lyrics. Why? Because (to me) the lyrics are genuine, fully-formed poems, in a way 99% of lyrics simply aren’t. But that happens like three times a year.
Sad, maybe. But it works for me.
so Maclean, you did do it! Huaazh.
Granted… in the year 2010, it can be hard to make time for anything. So any time, is time well spent.
Heh. Well, I did say it was rare. If it helps, I’m listening to some Bowie as I work. Hardly new music, but awesome nonetheless.
oldies are the besties!