Music is a different language. While the singer might be singing words you understand, the meaning is different, the underlying current is where the diversity lays. Music can mean anything you wish it to, that's the beautiful thing. While one hears a song and thinks of their children, another hears a song and thinks of their parents. Sometimes I listen to songs in other languages so I'm not distracted by the initial front of words. I feel the melody and get carried along with the emotion of the song. I feel what it is that the singer is feeling, a raw and unstoppable feeling courses through me. It is so important to tune out of life for a few minutes and truly listen to something beautiful. Wether something beautiful is rap or wether something beautiful is opera.
Anything is music, I wonder if rain is music. Rain makes me feel all the things that music does, it awakens a feeling in me and is beautiful to my ears. The sound of rain is a melody and I wonder if truly anything can be made music.
Music can make you feel things that you can never quite understand. It has the power to change all your thoughts to align with the song writer's intent. The first time I ever attempted suicide, music was what made it an attempt and not a success. I was in my bathroom with a bottle of bleach, the lid unscrewed and a forming white spot on the rug where I had spilled it. I plugged in my headphones for reasons I'm unsure of and I played Truce, a song by Twenty One Pilots. I cried harder than I ever had before while the lyrics "stay alive for me" coursed through my head. My trembling hands were stopped from reaching the bleach, I couldn't consume it no matter how hard I wanted to. In the end I settled for cuts littering all over my body but never once did anything happen to cause me death. Thanks to a song.
This happened on the 12th of August 2015, almost two years ago. The first time I seriously wanted to kill myself and came dangerously close to the precipice of my life. It's astounding that one song, played on repeat, could stop me from doing the one thing I was so sure I wanted to do.
While I may not be sure if me being alive is a good thing or not, I am sure that once I get to that point it is close to impossible to stop me from my intentions. But somehow, out of all the things in the world, a song managed to do that. It's hard to fathom it if you've never experienced, hard to understand how music can mean so much to someone unless it's literally saved your life.
I've met people who laugh at the fact that I feel music deeply. They call me "edgy" and make fun of the fact that songs are depressing or "emo" (because everyone knows that emo inherently means a target for mass bullying). You may even cringe at my use of edgy, depressing and emo.
But when it comes down to it, no one can possibly understand or fathom how much a song can mean to someone. If a song has specific personal meaning to you, no one can ever take that away or damage the meaning. That song, that melody, that chord progression, those lyrics, everything about it makes one 3 minute audio of a moment of your life. That is a powerful thing.
On top of this, there is also a connection to the artist. One that is unbreakable and strong. When you listen to a song at your lowest point in life, it feels like the person playing it was there with you, it feels like they personally helped you through it. Even though they have no idea of your mere existence, let alone the extent of how much their work has helped you.
I think the idea of "fandoms" has become so common and "groupie" that it's lost the significance of what it once held. When a group of people who all feel the same things about an artist gather together it can be an incredibly powerful thing. I speak from experience, I have met countless individuals who have shared their stories with me about how songs or artists have changed them and it should never be taken for granted by others. When I hear someone tell me their story I listen closely and I hear not only the words they say but I hear what lies beneath them; a raging love and a strong course of emotion. Most of the time you find that their stories are not all that different to yours, where an individual can change one, they can change many.
When you gather together to celebrate the significance and importance of something special to every individual, it creates a place of safety and a place of beauty. Fandoms are beautiful things, and if the word "fandoms" makes you inwardly cringe, find another word, find another way to look at it because they're beautiful and it truly is something special to be a part of one.
