Hello from Lubbock TX.
Heading west this weekend along with friends in Josh Grider’s band, and happy that I’m getting to open for such a great singer and friend. Traveling today, I couldn’t help but think how strange music is. My thoughts starting to drift and wonder, “What is it really for?”
It doesn’t take away hunger.
It doesn’t build anything.
It doesn’t always make sense and it doesn’t solve problems. Why does it matter?
Sometimes the best music doesn’t even make us happy. Sometimes I listen to music because it makes me sad.
How did something so transient become so important to the human race? So important to me?
How do random frequencies played by random materials sung by strangers reveal to me something about myself?
How does it help me travel through time to when I was a freshman in high school?
How does it remind me what it felt like the first time I kissed Sarah?
The answer: It shouldn’t.
And this is a mystery, because you and I both know - it does. And strangely, it holds this power over us when we least expect it, in places we don’t know it will find us, even in our memories as melodies reemerge like a Ghost’s whisper, like a lullaby, like an echo in our soul.
Like every time I hear ‘Racing In The Streets’ by Springsteen. Or when I sing ‘The Tribe’ on stage.
It leads me to believe that none of us are merely flesh and bone. We have a soul. Maybe that word scares you… pretend for a minute, that it doesn’t. Or name it what you like. But music is the language of this soul, this Self. And the funny thing is, we need music to help us hear it’s Voice. Because on our own - full of worries, and stress, and anger, and exhaustion - we can’t hear what we need to hear the most. Even when we concentrate and we try. It’s frustrating to me.
I can’t make the thoughts stop. I can’t make the worries cease. I can’t calm the seas… the waves tumble over me. Again. And Again. They tumble… over me.
And then I hear that opening line on the piano… and I breathe. And I breathe out.
And that’s why we need music. It speaks to us, but IT is not of us. Now the question we must each ask ourselves is this…
Why is that so?
I look forward to writing to you again. And I hope to see you on the road soon.
On a mission,
Keeton