Thursday, January 03, 2008

Who Wants To Live Forever?

I adored Freddie Mercury.

I know there are a lot of popular bands for which fame is fleeting because there is no real talent to sustain it. It's always been so, and always will be. Sometimes a band gets its fifteen minutes based on novelty alone, but novelty alone ain't gonna cut it unless there is some genuine talent to back it up. Think of Weird Al. He's novelty, but he's also a master of parody and a fantastic mimic and a ham who can really do it.

There are many fantastic musicians in bands that give them no outlet for the legitimacy of their talents. This is, of course, a choice each musician makes.

Other bands are made up of individual masters in their chosen field, and they showcase this magnificence with music that will always be memorable. Not everyone will agree on which is which, naturally; everyone has his/her own individual tastes in music.

I love music; it sustains me and gives me outlets for emotions and feelings that might otherwise land me in jail, and it soothes me and strengthens me and I consider it as much of a 'being' as any actual person I know. I am very particular about my music, although my children wouldn't think so, and I only play and replay the music I especially love. I do not care for most country and some jazz, although the adjectives give those genres a little leeway.

What really reduces me to a quivering mass of incoherent protoplasm is a lovely voice. And when the incomparable voice is coupled with beautiful lyrics and heart-shattering melody and irony and fate and a knowledge of what is going to happen and what has already happened, it leaves me in tears, paralyzed with emotion, and the only outlet is to listen to it again.

I'm not a fan of Highlander, but the song from Highlander hits me right where I live.