"Music, The Universal Brain Fix" - Time Out #24

You've probably called it the "Universal Language"

It is able to literally change your mood, usually for the better, just by listening to the first 15 or 20 seconds.

Better for you than an hour-session with a mental health professional?

MUSIC, patrons of Our Town!

It starts with infants, although many claim it supercedes that as pregnant women attest for their unborn babes, It may be up tempo or a soft, laid-back tune. You've seen the YouTube videos featuring the infants that get struck in that musical groove long enough for the video to be made. And, yes, that brought a big smile to your face every time you watched it.

For yours truly, a product of growing up in Our Town in the 50's and 60's. I was exposed to older siblings buying their $1 each vinyl record 45's for that controversial (?) Rock 'n Roll sound. Occasionally, my young, developing mind was exposed to slower paced vinyl 33 1/3rds and even to 78 size records. When I wasn't listening to the records spinning around on our record player, I'd catch the home or car AM radio stations blasting their audiences' choices. Another favorite option would be to visit a local restaurant for a quarter hamburger, and feed their juke box a nickel per play or 6 plays for a quarter to hear the sounds.

Oh, the memories.....

Music takes you on a life journey in an absolute instant.

A familiar tune will filter thru your ears, and you will go to a place in your mind's eye of long ago, or possibly just last month. You will remember that long-ago moment like it was yesterday, who you were with then, what the circumstances were then and what all has happened in your life since then.

It's almost like taking a truth serum

Those far off feelings and thoughts don't lie. As we age, they might blur slightly, but don't change our deep-set mental images.

Music is fully capable of triggering all types of deep emotions, and the only one that knows them are you.

As time passes, music tastes certainly don't stand still. New sounds are constantly are hoping to rise to the top.

Remember the King, Elvis Presley, and how on the Sunday night Ed Sullivan Show, the executives in charge didn't allow the television camera to show Elvis from the waist down because of his gyrations?

Remember how the Liverpool Four, i.e., Beatles, had those far-out mop hair heads, but that had no bearing on them taking Planet Earth's teenagers and young adult by the zillions?

Fast forward through the 70's to today, and the ages of psychedelic sounds, folk groups, heavy metal, rap, country crossover, etc, etc, etc. With each new music wave, prior generations, i.e., OLDER people, are always skeptical of the current music, the dancing it brings, and head shaking and head scratching, questioning "What is society coming to with this new, outrageous noise?"

In quick response, the younger generation justifiably shouts, "Hey, no harm, no foul!"

How neat is it, too, with all the ways we are able to receive music now?

No more waiting for a radio station disc jockey to play your song. Now, simply push the correct button on one of your plethora of electronic devices, and feel free to belt out the song's words and familiar hook to your heart's content!

So, Our Town, let's always try to be the center of the Brightest Orange and loudest music to enjoy.

That is, as long as we have our headphones on with a very tight fit.