Music has a magical property—it carries memories. A piece of music can haunt you, terrorize you or shower you with immense nostalgia if it was something you’ve listened to countless times in a significant moment in your life. Listening to the same music triggers those deep rooted feelings and emotions.
And we tend to turn ourselves over to music in our vulnerable state. Perhaps because unlike poetry, books or movies— music doesn’t require you to actively engage in processing it (this is only a speculation on my part though.) It readily engulfs you with emotion and creates a fictional world that resonates with you, a place you can call your own.
I even found that you con emotionally torture or reward yourself with music, intentionally.
My love for music emerged at an early age. Used to have a walkman and cassettes. Now I mostly use my phone and a pair of headphones. Even though I listen to most of the genres (that I came across) I do have an array of favorite ones. Here are my 5 favorite songs—
Eternal Tears of Sorrow - The River Flows Frozen
It was a warm night in 2011 and after dinner I stumbled on this song and had to listen to it on repeat the entire night. Couldn’t sleep at all. I felt like I found the holy grail. There was a strong sense of longing and desolation in it. Loved the beautiful lyrics too. After so many years, it is still one of my most favorite songs ever.
Pink Floyd - High Hopes
I only started listening to Pink Floyd only 3 or 4 years ago. Listened to a bunch of their songs and I clearly know why people love them so much. But the song I mostly got myself attached to is High Hopes. It has a surreal music video full of match cuts and absurd imagery that compliments the unearthly psychedelic music along with a great lyric. It feels curiously impersonal, like it represents all of humankind and their collective cognitive sentiments. You just go with the flow and accept it. And man, that guitar solo! oooooof!
Great piece of art, can’t praise it enough.
Antonio Vivaldi - La Folia
Granted that Vivaldi didn’t compose this piece but I love his rendition the most. I started to listen to classical music in 2016 and it opened an entire new world to me. Now this is a heavy topic and people learn classical music as a discipline, so I’m feeling a bit out of my depth trying to come up with words—but my feelings are my own. Antonio Vivaldi is the maestro I follow more than any other. His pieces seem sensual, poetic and sometimes crazy to me. The first “metal god”.
Scorpions - Send Me An Angel
I just went to youtube to link the song and when it started to play in the background—it....it gave me goosebumps! Yep, even now! I’ve listened to it countless times, passed countless nights with it.
Everytime it somehow dips me into a pool of loneliness and then slowly pushes me toward optimism, replacing all the built up nihilism—for better days, better life.
Iron Maiden - Afraid to Shoot Strangers
It was not my most favorite IM song when I started to listen to them as a kid but I guess it has found its way into my heart.
I love this song more for the killer solo it has, I absolutely love it. Can’t get enough of it.
Phew! It was hard to choose only five. But it would be even more cumbersome trying to choose more.
By the songs you can probably tell I’m a rock/metal guy. True enough but not exclusively.
I love listening to whatever my ears approve. I don’t lose my head over genres, song lyrics or even the language. Melody/tune/rhythm/symphony are the things I feel particularly close to. But that’s not always the case.
Oh and you can suggest to me your favorite songs, it’s always a great way to discover what people love.
And this has been the 7th day of the 30 day blogging challenge created by . I was supposed to write about my top 5 songs for today’s entry.
Other entries of this challenge can be found here—
Entry 1 - The dilemma behind my username
Entry 2 - Ten Facts About Myself
Entry 3 - My day in detail
Entry 4 - N/A
Entry 5 - What I'm afraid of
Entry 6 - Pet peeves! A lot of them!