I was waiting around in the employee break room at work this afternoon, killing some time before I had to clock in. As per usual, I was listening to my iPod. On this day, I was listening to the Live At Wembley Stadium album by Foo Fighters; you know, the show where they played with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. It’s easily one of my favorite albums ever, but today it just didn’t seem to bring me around as much.
But then I got to the very end of the album, after the members of Led Zeppelin had departed, and Dave Grohl came up to the mic and began telling the audience that they’ve “got to sing this song, all of us. We’ve got to sing this song as loud as we f**kin’ can, sing it for the last 14 years of being in this f**kin’ band…just sing it.” With that there comes a pause, and then he screams the opening lines to the titanic anthem “Best Of You,” brimming with emotion. As soon as Dave begins singing, the very moment his voice echoed out into the rafters of a sold out Wembley Stadium, 86,000 screaming fans are singing along with him, note for note. The amount of love and cooperation in that single moment is nearly palpable, even just through recordings. It was at that moment, sitting in my employee break room, that I started to cry. It was not because I was sad or angry, but I felt for one single second the energy and emotion that was contained in Wembley that night, and I came to a realization: 86,000 perfect strangers came together on this one night and became a single entity, held together by the music that they loved. No matter what happened after that moment, these people would always have that one moment to relive in their minds and hearts for their entire lives, when they were something greater than themselves. Foreigners, Jews, blacks, Christians…labels didn’t matter. All that mattered was screaming their lungs out to sing along with their biggest idols.
Many of you out there have probably experienced this before: music moving you, making you feel emotions that don’t quite make sense. A sense of pride, of love, of cherishing you never thought could be attached to something so inanimate. But is it really such an ethereal being, this music? While it may not truly have a form outside of a piece of staff paper, music is indeed a palpable being. Music can be there for us in times of need, when we feel like no one can be there for us in person. I know, because that is how I’ve felt for years. I’m not going to try to turn this into a treatise on why I’m messed up, but I feel like it is important for you, the readers of my fine articles, to understand where I’m coming from. I’ve been a fairly reclusive person for many years, being socially anxious and not being able to create real, long lasting friendships very often. I’ve been hurt by friends who forget about me, move on, ignore me, shun me, or simply just walk away from me. I’ve lived alone now for a year and a half, not being able to handle living in the cramped areas of college dorms. Life has been tough for me, emotionally, in the recent years. But one thing has always been there: music. I’ve never had to explain my problems to music; it knew what they were and exactly how to help me feel better. I’ve never had to feel embarrassed around music, because it is there only to make me feel like I belong. It reinforces me when I feel angry, giving me something to rage about if I need it. Music has been my best friend when I haven’t had one. All of these thoughts and feelings flashed through my brain and my heart in that one moment of that one song. I like to think that Dave Grohl felt the same way when he belted out the first lines: “I’ve got another confession to make, I’m your fool, everyone’s got their chains to break, holding you.” Throughout the song, you can hear Dave’s voice give way and crack. That is not because he is tired of singing or that he isn’t a good singer; he is just trying his hardest not to break down sobbing in front of 86,000 adoring fans. It must be the greatest feeling in the world, to see something you created become a piece of history, to watch it take on a life of its own. And that, dear readers, is why music is such a powerful force in and of itself. Most of us will never be able to understand how that feels, but we can sure as hell be the ones who will be able make someone else feel that way.
I want you all to promise me one thing, just one simple favor. The next time you go to a concert, wherever it is, whoever the band playing is, please just do one thing: I want you to sing your heart out, dance along to the rhythm, and have the time of your life. Let them know how their music makes you feel and shout it to the highest mountains, because everyone wants to feel that they have made a difference. Give them back what they gave to you.
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