The Power of Music | Teen Ink

The Power of Music

June 2, 2015
By Virginia Li BRONZE, Albania, Arizona
Virginia Li BRONZE, Albania, Arizona
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments

For me, the hard reality of life mixes and infuses with everything from my inside world-

the swirling, sensual, immersing and all surrounding feeling of different feelings and emotions, some from a beautiful views or objects, some from enticing fantasies, some from things i love, places.. Some from music...Usually, all of them together, warped and entangled into something indescribable and stunningly powerful, and beautiful. sometimes, when i feel like it hits me in my chest, and suddenly i am gasping for air.

This.. warped, entangled, bundle of what.. I don’t exactly know, how to describe this feeling. I don’t know the exact recipe for it, what causes it, and how many portions of what. heck, i don’t even know if there is a recipe.. somehow, i think, maybe childishly, that this is something more than science can describe. But what i do know is, this is not caused only from one sense of the eye, but also from the ear. I know that music can play a big part of this sometimes, and, that, music, is what i want to write about today.

“Down on the west coast, they got their icons, their silver starletts, their queens of saigon. But you’ve got the music in you.. don’t you.. Down on the west coast, they love their movies. their golden gods and, rock and roll groupies. but you’ve the music in you.. don’t you.... “

When ever i hear these words, i can remember the hainan china trips. small details, nothing too important, really, but in those moments, they are the world, they are my world. the hot summer day, walking up the white staircase into the hotel, the air thick with the heat. I can remember sitting on the bus, staring out the window, my friend next to me. Outside, a mountanside live and thick with trees and bushes. I can remember when we’re in our hotel room, and I’m outside on the balcony, feeling the heat from the tiles on my bare feet. 


lets get out of this town baby were on fire.. everyone around here seems to be going down, down down. If you stick with me I can take you higher and higher. It seems like all of our friends are lost nobody’s found found found.


I remember those days in shanghai. I was… young back then. Innocent. Society has yet to swipe me up into the torrents and waves of grades, homework, school, the future, hitting me in the chest and striking me out of breath. There was a house near us that was under construction. I would sneak in, and climb up all the cement stairs that had yet to have railings. 3 floors. and i would reach a little balcony. The balcony was connected to the rooftop, because the rooftop was slanted onto the balcony so low that i could reach it. I would climb on it, and climb on to the rooftop of the house. A 3 story house. On the rooftop. Of someone else’s home under construction. It was crazy. was under construction. I would sneak in, and climb up all the cement stairs that had yet to have railings. 3 floors. and i would reach a little balcony. The balcony was connected to the rooftop, because the rooftop was slanted onto the balcony so low that i could reach it. I would climb on it, and climb on to the rooftop of the house. And I would never. ever. regret it.  I would go on to the rooftop, and put on lana del ray. I brought my laptop with me. As her deep voice filled the air, I would just sit there on that balcony and become immersed by the beauty around me. The sky was pale blue, I could see the wiring poles and the wires that crossed across and across the sky and the highway in the distance. I would see the red and green lights on the crossroads beneath me changing and changing and changing. back and forth, back and forth. It was beautiful. Sometimes I would stay for the sunset. It came at six o clock. The sky would be orange or Scarlett or pale pink. They contrasted with the telephone poles and the wires in the distance near the highway. The highway felt like it would lead on to infinity, to journeys down rocky roads, to amazing places. It felt like I was in the middle of a story. A picture. A movie. I was so entranced. I went there often. Now everytime I listen to lana del rey, I can still see the sunset. I miss it. I miss the craziness. and the beauty.

 

How can 3 minuets of something hold so much? its capacity is amazing, and everytime i listen to it, it seems like i can fill a new memory onto it. On my itunes, i have hundreds of songs, and that makes thousands of memories. I cannot do without it.

 

so.. thats really all i got to say.. and ask. I don’t exactly have a scientific theory, or some huge discovery. I just feel like there is this whole.. other world.. at least for me.. full of fantasies, full of beautiful places, of cities, of different people i can be.. of an oasis, of an.. i just feel like music is the key, an key, to something big. something powerful, and something extremely, stunningly beautiful. this isn’t something words can describe... and so next time, when you sit on the bus or car, look out the window, and listen to some music that you love. and let it flow, vibrate with it, immerse in it. And look into the distance, to the silhouette of the city, to the darkening night sky... and let it take you of to another world.

the end.


The author's comments:

 I am a person that links emotions with many things, and see beauty in many things. I FEEL, and I feel with intensity. I love music- they bring in me swirls of emotion, and each song seems to bring forth a special emotion I have put in there before. I've always found that keeping a diary is insufficient for my needs, because I can capture the solid things, but I can never capture the emotion- which is what I want to keep. I always feel that desperation when I look at beauty- because I know that it can not stay with me.  Yet music seems to do be able it perfectly. If I was listening to music when looking at that sight, if I listen to that song again later- the same feelings rush back- as if it were the first time. I wanted to figure out... or at least express.. this passion I have. And so this peice came as a release. 


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