Member-only story
The Meaning Inside the Music
by Michelle Montoro
Have you ever asked anyone what their favorite (fill in the blank with any number of subjects here) is? Favorite color, favorite book, favorite food, favorite movie, favorite person, favorite place, favorite animal, favorite drink. Most people have an immediate answer ready without hesitation. They can rattle off their list of favorites without pause, like perfectly timed snare drums nary missing a beat. But ask them their favorite song and you will not get just one unambiguous direct answer.
I don’t think I have ever met a person yet who has just one favorite song. Most of us have many. Because music moves us, comforts us, consoles us, inspires us, motivates us, heals us, torments us, and reminds us. It travels with us through our lives. We listen in the car, in the shower, in the bed, in the office, in the gym, in the kitchen. We surround ourselves with song. And because we carry music with us wherever we go, the songs very often become the keepers of our memories. At the slightest hint of the first few notes of a song that has impacted us, we go flashing back with vivid imagination to the time and place whence that song was our favorite.
I still remember ancient hymns of homesick seafarers that my Nordic grandfather used to sing to me when I was a child. These are probably some of my very earliest memories. From a time…
