Know How I Know You're Gay?

How someone can not love music is something that I’ll never understand. I live with a person like that and I still don’t understand. If I had the talent, music would be my life. I often think about ways that it could be since my physical attributes lack in the subject but I have some ideas. Either way, how a person isn’t moved by music is a greater mystery than the origin of the species.

Know how I know that I’m gay? Because I listen to Coldplay. That’s right, I really like them. In fact, the event that inspired this in-prompt-to foray was the broadcast of Coldplay’s VH1 story teller’s episode on INHD. I might even stay up for Dave Matthews at 12am. I’m intrigued, though more like captivated, by the stories of those who’ve made it in the music industry. I want to know what made them successful, what inspired them, how they came up with a certain chorus. I don’t think that I could be one one-hundredth as successful if I knew their secret, because I couldn’t. I can’t even play the guitar right now because my middle finger on my left hand, the hand that plays the strings since I’m a righty, is broken and when I tried to play tonight it hurt more than a bit. At the heart of it, I just want to know how they came up with great music – music that fills a room with harmony and melody so perfectly in tune that you barely realize they are separate.

It’s sad to say, but I could have cried sitting alone on the couch listening to story tellers, not because it was Coldplay, but because of the overwhelming emotion that music invokes in me. I can’t remember the last time I cried. I think it all starts from childhood. Raised in a house where playing the piano was a legacy, I began exploring music at a young age, thanks largely in part to my mother. Breezing through the boring history of my musical career, I began my training on piano, moved to trumpet, because that makes sense, and finally settled on guitar, which I’ve been playing to this day. As I’ve moved on from instrument to instrument, I’ve slowly lost the theory behind the notes and chords but had a great obligation to study those things. I feel sorry for people who didn’t grow up in musical homes. They may have missed out on a part of life that’s so fulfilling it can take your entire life to figure out.

One goal, not a new year’s resolution, was to write more songs, and I’ll be damned if I don’t. Really, I need to carry a pad of paper around with me everywhere I go because I come up with lyrics and thoughts that need to be written down but are forgotten by the time I get home. I’m not sure how jotting notes while driving on the beltway at rush hour will go over but I’m willing to try. Maybe those damn hippies did get it right. There’s a power in music, with or without the help herb, that no other creative outlet or appreciation can hope to match. Flower power may have turned to power broker but I’m still here and always will be.