Heh, have you ever had a not-so-good day where everything seems to go wrong? Maybe your wife backed the car against the garage door?

Or did the dogs run around the house with mud on their paws right after you cleaned the carpets? The neighbor boy wakes you up at 5 in the morning and you are not a morning person?

I once heard the definition of a bad day. You know you’re having a bad day if you’re following a Hells Angels motorcycle gang and your car horn gets stuck.

You know you’re having a bad day if you wake up and your waterbed is leaking, except you don’t have a waterbed. You know you’re having a bad day when Fill in the blanks.

So you say you’re having a bad day, huh? You turn on the radio and even though you’re a conservative, those right-wing talk show hosts are giving you a headache.

Hit the FM button and start scanning the dial for something interesting. The next thing you know, you’re belting out with the Doobie Brothers, Listen to the Music.

Of course, at this point your windows are up and people are staring at you at the stoplight. But heh, who cares. You just had an attitude transplant.

An inspirational quote says that music has the charm of soothing the wild chest, softening the rocks, or bending a knotted oak.

That’s from a play The Mourning Bride by William Congreve, who lived from 1670 to 1729, just when Ben Franklin was born.

Think about this. The blind violinist touched the enraged heart of the Frankenstein monster.

One of my all-time favorite songs calmed a lost Kansas girl’s trembling of fear when she sang Over the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz.

Or another favorite is the classic Chicago rock group Make Me Smile.

There is much to be said about the power of music. I like all styles of music, classical, jazz, gospel, rock, folk, country, even bluegrass. There’s even a little bit of Rap that I can tolerate a little bit.

In fact, my love of music and my childhood dream of being a famous radio disc jockey came true several years ago when I got paid to have fun doing a morning driving show in Kansas City.

In my fifteen minutes of fame, I had the privilege of playing the most popular music of that day on the airwaves and interviewing some people much more famous than me.

My latest hobby is collecting music concert DVDs. So when I heard that a local music store was going out of business, I was quick to see what kinds of deals I could get to add to my collection. Well, they just happened to have Lynyrd Skynyrd’s old documentary Freebird. So guess what I did? I bought it!

And also a fantastic concert from the original members of Fleetwood Mac. The encore numbers performed by Lindsay Buckingham, Stevie Nix, John and Christie McVie and Mick Fleetwood not only made me smile, but also made me want to get up and dance. And if you’ve ever seen me dance, it’s not nice at all. I’m a bad version of Steve Martin’s Happy Feet.

The band wowed audiences with a drum-based performance of Tusk, which featured the entire University of Southern California marching band in full parade costume. That made me smile a lot more. It is really inspiring.

If that wasn’t enough, they performed their hit song Don’t Stop. Talk about getting rid of the past and moving on with hope and optimism. A very enthusiastic hymn that resonates with, do not stop thinking about tomorrow, do not stop, it will soon be here. He will be here, better than before, yesterday he left, yesterday he left.

Perhaps the most famous rendition of this song was when Fleetwood Mac sang at William Jefferson Clinton’s first presidential inauguration. Regardless of your political affiliation, you have to admit that it was very good. Okay, don’t admit it. What do I care?

You may not be a huge music fan like me, but can you imagine a world without music? Each television show has its musical theme. Superbowl commercials often feature old celebrities and even CSI plays a tune from The Who.

Music is woven into the very fabric of our society. Even sacred music is not so sacred if you study it. Another contemporary of Ben Franklin, the Englishman Charles Wesley, wrote a couple hundred religious songs that are still sung today. Guess what? Most people do not know that these sacred songs were sung to the tunes of popular 18th century bar songs. Surprise.

You may recall that Charles’s older brother, John Wesley, was very involved in the start of the Methodist Church after the great Wesleyan revival of the 18th century.

How is it that humans have this inner compass that is drawn like a magnet to the North Pole called music?

The 1960s were filled with folk songs whose lyrics shaped political views. Lyricists have always captured the climate of today’s culture and expressed songs in a way that moved us and deeply moved us.

So my anthem for today would be this: Let the music in. Perhaps for you it has been a long time since you let something touch you in the depths of your soul. Maybe it’s time you turned a corner in your life.

Maybe it’s your time to accept Fleetwood Mac’s strong suggestion, don’t stop thinking about tomorrow, yesterday is gone. Your future will always be brighter if you let the music in.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *