where words leave off, music begins

On the Power and Meaning of Music

    I had a meeting this morning in the big city. It was my first drive up there in a while, my first trip of any distance in the new vehicle. My old car was pretty low tech, a year behind the redesign that brought in Bluetooth, heated seats, and all the rest of the bells & whistles. I had that car for a little over 9 years. That means I became accustomed to driving without having a synced phone, without having Waze running through the speakers, and having a freezing cold butt (until the heat finally kicked in and I roasted).
     My new car is quite a bit more fancy.
     However, I've resisted (as yet) the urge to revel in all that luxury. Well, I do heat my butt when it's cold, but other that that I haven't linked and set up and run through and done all that can be done to make things "easier." No garage door remote through the car. No phone screaming at me through the speakers. No smarter-than-me GPS repeatedly reminding me to Turn Left...Turn Right Turn Right Turn Right (when it was wrong to begin with).
     This means that I am (gasp!) still playing music in the very old-fashioned way: via mix CDs. This morning's rotation turned out to include a couple that I had made for Chris, way back when. Even without the laptop-sized screen on the dash, I would have known that they were his. There's no way I will ever hear some of these songs without thinking of him, so indelibly are they tied to that time, the stuff we were going through, and the bond that we had.
     He would laugh to know that "Pretty Fly (for a white guy)" reminds me of his silliness, his boyish charm, and his absolute inability to take himself too seriously.
     Dala's "Horses" (from Everyone is Someone) is a glimpse into his dark side.
I saw horses from my window
They were watching all the cars go
And they don't care that I am broken
Close my eyes and run beside them

Through the valleys and the pastures
And I know you'll never find me

'Cause I'm already free
I'm already free
So don't look for me here
Don't look for me here
'Cause I run in my dream     "Don't Ask Her That" by Shaggy (feat. Nicole Scherzinger) is a classic, about the wisdom in not asking questions when you really don't want to know the answers.
    Tim McGraw's "My Best Friend" makes me want to howl.
I don't know where I'd be
Without you here with me
Life with you makes perfect sense
You're my best friend     So I'm driving back, singing along to these songs, thinking about my dear friend, missing him acutely, glad that I had him in my life. He's the one person who loved music in the same way as I do, who made mixes with the same fervor and personality—and handed them over with that same combination of shyness and pride, pure affection on a platter. He sent me song titles, and screen shots from Pandora and Spotify, and snips of lyrics, and SO many text messages: "hey, A--have you heard...?"
     I miss him a lot.
     In sum: music is powerful.

[the title quotation is by Heinrich Heine]