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The Maroon
IP’AGE '(>
May noon/
Music is My Sanctuary
w hv vtasha 1. womack
by ytasha 1. womack
contributing writer
M usic is powerful. The melo
dies and rhythms are in tune
with life. The heartbeat is the
rhythm of the drum, and our slow stride
or vocal intonations are the melody. I
once heard a professor say that when the
drum was taken away from our ances
tors we internalized it. In essence, we
are going to feel music whether we are
conscious of it or not, and once our
heartbeats and emotions are lined up
with that of the music, the artist has us
under his or her control.
Not so long ago, my emotions were
getting the best of me. Feeling sor
row cloud my thoughts, I forced my
self to be rational. "Okay Ytasha, are
you going to stay in this breadbox
room and aimlessly stare at the wall
all day and not do your homework
or are you going to go out and enjoy
the sunshine and not do your home
work?" The latter seemed to be a
more justifiable excuse for letting the
day slip by without doing anything
constructive, so I went out.
Fighting to maintain a positive at
titude, I decided to buy a CD to Tift
me up' and 'keep my mind off things,'
so I purchased the Love Jones
Soundtrack. As soon as I got home, I
skipped to the Lauryn Hill jam my
friend said I would love and listened.
Slowly, my mind started to wander to
the "sweetest thing" I'd ever known. .
.a sweet guy I was interested in who
didn't have the time and maybe not the
interest to show me how he felt. His
honesty made me like him more and our
dates were some of the best I'd had in a
while. So by the time the melody
changed and Hill sang 'I tried to ex
plain,' I was thinking about how I might
never get to know this guy the way I
want to and how my efforts to develop
a relationship were fruitless.
As the chorus continued, my mind
drifted to another guy I'd supposedly
loved who dumped me over a year ago.
I hadn't thought about him in months,
but anger began to consume me at my
feeble attempts to explain that I hadn't
cheated on him and how stupid I looked
in the process. It was as if I was reliv
ing the experience.
So now I'm wallowing in the past.
Fighting the tears. By the time
Maxwell's sensuous "Sumthin',
Sumthin'" came on, I had decided that
I might never have an intimate relation
ship again. "I will not be depressed, " I
thought. I shook off my gaze at the ceil
ing, abruptly stopped the CD and threw
in a tape. I waited by the speaker,
poised to snatch the tape out at the hint
Columbia Records
of a sappy love song. But it wasn't. It
had an Atlanta bounce beat to it, so I
relaxed. I wasn't really paying atten
tion to the words, but my attitude was
already changing. Forget them. They
don't know what they're missing. By the
time MJG said "you can't fade a pimp
in his own [expletive] rhyme," I was
hyped. "*@#$ those @*?#!$. I don't
have to wait on their @!# for * A %@. "
But although my attitude had totally
flipped, I wasn't happy. I stopped the
tape and popped in another.
"Car Wash," the 70's groove, came on.
My mind drifted to the innocence of
yesteryear. Thoughts of my family
cleaning up the house with "Car Wash"
in the background and me wishing I
could dance on Soul Train. But then I
thought about how different my family
is now, followed by that nerve racking
thought that I had no car in the first
place and that I couldn't truly relate to
the joy of washing one so there's no
point in listening to someone sing about
washing theirs. Eventually, I turned the
music off and did my homework.
ave you ever had a euphoric
rush while listening to the ra
dio as you drove or found
yourself walking to the beat of a song?
That's the internal power of music. And
the words — depending on your state
of mind — can subconsciously sway
you, whether you want it to or
not.Being at a low point in my life, I
was especially vulnerable to music's
subconscious influence. But it was a
perfectly safe vulnerability; music is
my sanctuary. I felt the rhythm and
melody so strongly that I absorbed
the words in the songs as my own —
when they were the expressions of
others. Those two guys I was pour
ing over were far from the sweetest
things I'd known in life. The lyrics
conjured up painful memories of a
guy I hadn't thought about in
months. But I had to physically re
move myself from the song to gather
my own thoughts to conclude that.
Music also gives power to emo
tions you already have. I wanted to
release my feelings of insecurity but the
"Pimp In My Own Rhyme" took it to
the extreme. Even something as inno
cent as "Car Wash" had me dazed.
e listen to music incessantly.
The wave of messages with
dubious lyrics by talented
artists have many claiming that they
"just like the beat or the rapper's flow
but not the words," as if the two are in
separable. With the combination of
chanted phrases and barely audible or
gasms hidden under drum beats, a va
riety of thoughts are subtly inserted
without us being aware. Music is never
the source of blame in any situation, but
it does sway emotions. The more aware
we are of its potential power, the easier
we can assess the effect of music on our
generation and those to come.
