music which changed your life

[giz]

We've got books in the book thread, so I thought we needed it in music.

For me, two things come to mind. First is Ian Dury's Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. Not for the reasons you think (mind out of the gutter people). I had worked in a job I hated for 5 years, and used to go home at lunch to decompress and listen to music. One day I had on Ian Dury's Sex and D. and R. and R., and he says: "what a jolly bad show,if all you ever do - is business you don't like" "here's a little piece of advice, you're quite welcome, it is free. Don't do nothing that is cut-price, you know how that'll make you feel, they will try their tricky device, trap you with the ordinary, let yourself take a small bite - of the cake of liberty." So that did it and I started planning to quit my job and travel round Europe. Especially London as I was a die-hard Blockhead fan! Met my husband there, so thank you Ian, and Rest in Peace.

The other music which changed my life, was the Pretenders. A great deal of Pretenders. So many of her songs are about love which is inevitable, unavoidable, lustful and fated to make you miserable. I think it didn't put me in a good place with romance, as it sounded better when Chrissie sang it than it felt when I lived it. So good and bad there. Anyone else have Music Which Changed My Life (how cheesy!).

[geek the girl]

Consider yourselves warned: This will be an epic, and a pretty sappy one.

While countless bands, singers, songs and albums have had great impact on me, only one musical act has truly changed my life: Morrissey, particularly his songs from the Smiths era. I know I'm not alone in this; he has that life-altering affect on people - especially painfully shy, awkward teens who are convinced there is no one in the whole world who has ever felt what they are feeling. Well, there is, and his name is Stephen Patrick Morrissey, the agony uncle who will never feed you blatant lies such as "this, too, shall pass" (which it will, but when you're "sixteen, clumsy and shy", as the Smiths song goes, you don't know that) or "you just haven't met the right person" (which you haven't - but, as another Smiths song goes, "oh, but you will, for you must"). Instead, he just curls up close to you, takes your hand and tells you that you're not alone. In fact, he makes quite the effort to outshine your miserable state - the alienation, the despair, everything you've come to hold dearly - by singing things so pathetic, you're ashamed to admit you've been thinking the exact same things. Example: "I know I'm unlovable, you don't have to tell me" and, a bit later in the song, "I wear black on the outside, because black is how I feel on the inside / And if I seem a little strange, well, that's because I am". You listen to his oh so beautiful voice, the irresistable pop tunes and jangly guitars (courtesy of Johnny Marr, who you never really figured out and who probably never felt the same way you and Morrissey do) and suddenly feel better about yourself. You realize you're not the first person to feel out of touch with the world.

Then you realize that there are other Morrissey and Smiths fans everywhere. Not at your local high school, mind you, but they're around. You sneak your way into clubs you're not legally allowed to frequent just to dance and sing along to Smiths songs with other fans. You go online on various message boards devoted to The Smiths and Morrissey. One day, you meet who is to become your very first love. Not your last love, not even your biggest love, but the first person (apart from Morrissey and, to some extend, Nick Cave, who deserves an honorary mention here. As do Michael Stipe, Lucinda Williams and Stuart of Belle & Sebastian. Thanks, guys. This one's for the Mozzer, though) who truly gets you. There are thousands of miles between you, but that doesn't stop you from going to London to meet him in person. You know that you've declared yourself celibate, mostly because Morrissey is celibate and, frankly, you just haven't gotten lucky yet. You realize that maybe a celibate, lonely existence of Oscar Wilde books, tea and Smiths albums just wasn't cut out for you. Well, apart from the last three things, that is.

It doesn't last, of course. First loves hardly ever do, and perhaps two diehard Morrissey fans repel each other - the relationship just isn't big enough for two fanatics. But afterwards, you emerge into the world a happier, steadier and - dare I say it? - better person and it all started with Morrissey. You continue to listen to all of the albums religously. You go to Morrissey's solo gigs and scream your lungs out like a twelve-year-old girl on a Backstreet Boys concert. After a while, you start listening to other artists every once in a while. You discover alt. country, you discover twee. You grow up, finally meet the man of your dreams (the biggest and, hopefully, last love) and wouldn't you know it, he's not even a Morrissey fan. He likes his songs well enough, but he's never been psychotic about it. And that's fine; in fact, it's a good thing. You sort of enjoy being the only resident fanatic in the house. Sometimes you even neglect your old agony uncle. You spend months listening to all sorts of stuff while all your treasured CDs and rare vinyls gather dust. You never truly forget, though: he'll always have a special place in your heart, even though you're all grown up and (reasonably) stable now. Whenever you listen to one of his songs, you remember what it was like being that awkward teenager who was convinced that no one had ever felt quite as lonely and misunderstood as you. Until Morrissey came and changed all that, that is.

[whitsun9]

Geek the Girl, I do have to second your Smiths and Morrissey love.

As for music that personally has changed my life, though, I'd have to say Jackson Browne's "Song for Adam." Someone I was close to committed suicide, and the lyrics to this song are possibly the most beautiful [and haunting] thing I've come across in relation to that. It's sort of like that moment in my life stopped existing in any sort of real way... and turned into a song. An excerpt:

Though Adam was a friend of mine, I did not know him long
And when I stood myself beside him, I never thought I was as strong
Still it seems he stopped his singing in the middle of his song
Well I'm not the one to say I know, but I'm hoping he was wrong


Honorable Mentions go to:
Richard Shindell
Muse
Elliot Smith

[razorbacker]

I guess I'll go back a little further than you all & have to say that the one album that changed not only my appreciation of music, but literally changed the way albums were created & put together as a concept. That would have to be The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In my opinion still The Greatest album ever. Followed closely by Pink Floyds Dark Side of the Moon.

[bbnbama]

"The Dance" by Garth Brooks.........it will also be played at my funeral........


"And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd of had to miss the dance"

[Rattus]

The music that changed my life would be punk. I don't have any deep love of hard-core punk, per se, but the lunatic lifestyle that went along with it offered a haven for those of us who suffered greatly under the totalitarian thumb of conventional suburban life.

[Basket*Case]

Just hearing Green Day's music changed everything. I think they opened a lot of doors for me.

[SnowflakeGirl]

Geek the Girl's post made me cry! I understand all too well how powerful Morrissey's presence can be in the life of the sensitive, over-analytical fish-out-of-water. The Smiths was one of the first bands whose tapes (remember those?) I listened to when I was in elementary school...It was the only thing got me out of the miserable days of my youth alive.

[Chorita KaBoom]

It would be silly of me not to say that the Beatles White album hadn't had an effect on me, but the truth is I was much more profoundly effected later by David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust), Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground (Walk on the Wildside), Elvis Costello (Allison), The Sex Pistols (No Feelings), The Clash (too many to mention). I was a disaffected, gay teenager growing up in rural Missouri. The messages in this music spoke to me. Told me that somewhere out there is was okay to be different, and I got strength from that. As different as I felt on the inside, I could manifest it on the outside, adopting the D.I.Y. fashions of the punks (just can't stand it when I see these kids at shows in their Hot Topic poseur crap). After I went away to college and grew older there was Hüsker Dü. Later on after college and I was out on my own The Cure and The Smiths became passions of mine. I used to dress up as fat bob when I went out.

As I've grown old (44 on friday, yikes!), my musical tastes have tremendously expanded, but in my heart I'll always be a punk.

[Basket*Case]

Very good words said, Chorita KaBoom.