“Hearing the blues changed my life.”
– Van Morrison
I am pretty sure it started with “She Caught The Katy,” in the opening scene of The Blues Brothers, circa 1980. (The song kicks in at the 2:19 mark…) It is still my favorite movie of all time. And, I have five different versions of that song in my playlist.
Unlike Steve Martin in The Jerk, I was born a middle-class white child. What connection could I possibly have to music with roots going back to African-Americans in the southern USA about 150 or so years ago? Right? But there’s something about a 12-bar segment featuring “blues notes” that just. Makes. Me. Feel. “Right.”
Monday night, after six hours in the car and 90 minutes in a meeting, and in an effort to create less of me, I overdid it in the gym. Every ounce of me (and there are too many of them, thus the trip to the gym in the first place, but I digress…) was dead tired. Now, don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t take much these days, but as I settled in to my chair to watch one of the worst Monday Football Games in history, I turned down the sound and said, “Alexa, play Pandora Blues Guitar Legends.”
Transformed. Transported. To my happy place.
We all have something that squeezes that trigger. A scent (for me, diesel exhaust on a cool day takes me back to the farm). A sound. A phrase. Or, music.
The Diff touches on music with some degree of regularity. When I need to get my mind right — this is the music I turn to. It makes a difference for me.
Weak post? Yeah, probably so.
I’m over it, though.
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