Music acts as soundtrack to lives

We do not choose the music we listen to, the music we listen to chooses us. I was discussing this potential column with my roommate on Monday night. He said to me, "Shawn, I can't do anything without music." I have always been amazed at how music plays such an important role in one's lifetime, especially between the ages of 15 and 25. It’s as if the music that we are exposed to during this time period takes deeper meaning than the music you hear at all other times in your life.

In this 10 year span, we do more than just listen to music. Music actually lives in our cars, headphones and minds far apart from the lap of the rest of the world. Our memories can roll into a living soundtrack.

They can be powerful memories like in the movie "The Shawshank Redemption," when Andy plays the opera over the P.A. system and the entire prison feels the effect. It can also ruin times in your life, much like the cinematic blunder of adding a musical number in the middle of "Return of the Jedi" (George, what were you thinking?)

With such purport, our lives can be defined by the music to which we listen. Just the same, our lives can define certain pieces of music. In my own life there is an example of this.

I had the extreme pleasure of spending my summer basking in the temptations of "Sin City" itself: Las Vegas. When I arrived there, the moment I put my bags down, I was out the door to see Dave Matthews Band in concert.

Now, I have never been keen on Dave's music. More or less, I had always considered them an average band that had been over glorified by college students. I used to think that, until that concert. As it turned out, the songs I was listening to then became more than just the equation of instruments and lyrics, they became a representation of the people I was with, the fun I was having and, as it turns out, my entire experience in Las Vegas.

The band hadn't changed the songs from all the other times that I had been exposed to them. But it was at that moment the songs related to my life and from that point on, my summer in the desert became synonymous with Dave Matthews Band.

The whole Vegas experience I had, from gambling with Marilyn Manson and Lisa Marie Presley to late nights up in the Foundation Room, can go down as one of the best times in my life. Being back in West Lafayette now you can understand how I could really miss the summer from time to time. But therein lies the magic within music.

It's amazing when a familiar song pops on, all of the sudden you are taken to another place and time in your life. Songs can act as a point on the timeline that is your life, documenting any moment. The summer of 2001, for me, is marked by Dave Matthews.

Life, though, isn’t just a series of moments strung together. There are people, relationships, love and death, and there are songs that cover it all. Everyone knows at least one song that had been written, so deeply it seems, that it touches you until your heart aches, and it can feel as if that song was written for you personally.

Music goes beyond just the dramatic portions of our lives as well. It's embedded into our daily routines. We listen to music while we study, while getting ready for something like a date or job interview and at parties (or the bars for those of us of age.)

Music can also change your frame of mind. We use music to get us psyched up, or lower our inhibitions so we can go crazy like Martin Gramatica after he makes a long field goal (man, I would love to hear what that cat listens to before games - crazy).

And all of this seems to fade away around the age of 25.

Look at our parents. These people lived in arguably the greatest time period of music history. They had the phenomena otherwise known as The Beatles and the greatest concert in history: Woodstock. Arguably, there are still some tree-huggers out there stuck in this time period, but for the most part, what are the results from this outstanding era? I'll tell you what, a bunch of middle aged CNBC addicts who want nothing more than to keep us below the roof of the Boiler Room.

What happens to the passion that we hold for music once we are a few years removed from college? To me, great music is timeless. A good song is a good song forever, and is not a result from some kind of trend or fad. In turn, our intensity for music must remain timeless as well.

Shawn McGann is a senior in the school of Computer Technology. Shawn believes it is indeed better to burnout than to fade away. He can be emailed at opinions@purdueexponent.org

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