I dreamed you were a cosmonaut of the space between our chairs, and I was a cartographer of the tangles in your hairs

Words are funny funny things.  We say them, we use them, we manipulate them, we throw them away.  They can injure or heal us, bring us down from somewheregood we thought we were, or open our eyes to an unforeseen reality.  Yet the truth is, when you get down to it, they are meaningless, for they very rarely reveal the true intent or feelings of the user.  Words don’t count, intent does.  Words can lie, intent can’t.  If someone knows, honestly knows what your intent is, there is no way to change that.  Even if you force yourself to change your intent, your heart’s intent still stays down that same path.  

Those are facts I live by, yet I love, absolutely adore music, and music is something that throws the theory of what I just said out the window.  Music is made of two things essentially:  Sounds and Lyrics.  More than that, music, for the most part, lacks intent.  Sure, feelings are involved but these usually come from experiences, events from the past that have already run their course and can no longer have intent.  Sure, songs can have intent, they can speak of future plans, paths currently travelled and the like, but that is rare, because it’s hard to stick to a path once everyone knows your on it.  That’s why they are paths, because they are small, narrow and winding, meant for only one or two people at a time, get a crowd with you and your just one of the group, not your own person.  

Also, a lot of lyrics are written by ones other than the person singing it.  They are not based on personal experience or feelings, or at least not their own.  They may be beautiful but are not theirs and are not true.  Even if the words are written by the one singing them, they may not reflect the feelings of the singer, but rather words the singer wanted to write, or words that flowed when strung together.  People write songs about love who may have never been in love, people brag about how great they are that seem more like a convincing then a self-assurance.  

What what is music without lyrics?  I love both parts of it equally.  Beautiful words are spoken and amazing melodies are played and they come together as incredible moments of perfection.  These are things that people throw themselves into, knowing full well that they possibly or probably may be ridiculed or fail, and have to fall back down to earth.  These thoughts being in my head leave me to believe that the “musical” part of music is what’s true.  It’s where the true feelings lie, where the true meanings lie.  Lyrics are just the decoration, the attempt to translate what is being said into a most digestible form.  

I know that people use music to make money and get famous.  But there are people out there, real people, who use music to express themselves, and I believe in those people, I believe in their “god,” and believe that they are truly good people who create “real” and give it to us to beautiful forms.  Why do I believe in them, because they, while saying words, scream intent.  

Music recommendation for the day?  Muse’s “Glorious” It’s from their latest “Black Holes and Revelations” as a bonus track, but I think the only reason it’s only a bonus track is because of the length, one more stanza and you’ve got yourself quite an amazing song.  And that’s saying something because it’s a pretty amazing song as is.  I love songs that build up from something small to something big, and this one of those songs.  The pre-chorus is the best part with the steadily building beat getting stronger and stronger.  Highly recommended.

The post title is from Andrew Bird’s “Armchairs” 

P.S.  I was planning on using this to talk about Jason Mraz’s new “We Sing We Dance We Steal Things” but It got away from me, tomorrow I guess I’ll handle that.