"In vacant or in pensive mood..." I am: Bekah; 24; Law Student / Favorite Things: Carbs (so there!), Johnny Damon, Smiling at babies, Grilled cheese, Comfortable silence / Favorite Supreme Court Justice: Brennan / Favorite Wilson: Owen by an inch / Today's Special: Song: Elliott Smith, "Bled White"; Quote: "You know, there's like a butt-load of gangs at this school. This one gang kept wanting me to join because I'm pretty good with a bowstaff." Please love me: mmbekah@yahoo.com


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Religious Experience

I don't remember the exact point in my life when my love of music really solidified into what I consider to be, in a lot of respects, my religion. Growing up, my Dad was the first person to introduce me to great music: The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Gram Parsons, REM. As my own musical tastes began to change and develop, I would move in and out of various obsessions. For a while, I only wanted to listen to alt-country. Son Volt and Wilco were stuck in rotation. There was a point when I got hung up on Belle and Sebastian. Then I wanted to listen to every song Beck had ever recorded. Later, I got on a serious indie/emo kick (from which I still haven't come close to escaping). These are just a few examples of points I can remember. They're not in any particular order, or of any special significance on their own. They just represent the nuances of my musical development, which is still continuing.

In my musical world, there is a holy trinity. Bob Dylan is God. REM is the son. Radiohead is the holy spirit. This has been the case for a while, and I don't think it will ever really change. This is not to say that I don't have a great deal of apostles and archangels and seraphim and whatnot (I don't know how that really works; I'm Jewish, so this metaphor is a bit of a stretch to begin with), but those three are the core. Listening to their music is the closest I've ever come to actually feeling like a religious person. There are certain sequences of notes or pauses or drum beats in their songs that make me feel the way I guess some people must feel when they are in church.

When I saw REM for the first time, I was in Boston with my friend Julia. We were very far away from the stage, but I remember not caring. The article I wrote for my school paper about that concert was a little intense. I just felt so many conflicting emotions that I was overwhelmed by a feeling of completeness--like I was experiencing every different emotion all at once as one big incredible feeling. I think I wrote (back then) that it was "love and hate, heat and cold, emptiness and fullness." It's hard to explain, but I really did want to laugh and cry at the same time. When Michael sang "Find the River," I was just paralyzed. The people in the crowd became a unified force, and I felt completely certain that the world was just unbelievable. How could everything come together to make something as amazing as what I was witnessing at that particular moment? Did everything else outside of that concert hall have to stop just to make it possible?

This year, I got to see REM again, and Radiohead for the first time. REM was incredible, of course, but the Radiohead concert was just beyond anything I'd expected. Again, I was really far away from the stage, and again, I didn't care. The way the music and the lights and the atmosphere all came together was just overwhelming. My knees were weak. After the show, I was physically exhausted. One weird thing I remember thinking during the concert was how a deaf person would respond to it. There were brilliant lights that changed according to the music, and you could actually feel every beat in your chest. The whole thing just made me feel so wonderfully humbled by the things human beings are capable of doing, and how they can make each other feel. I guess you could call that a religious experience. But don't worry. I won't start worshipping a golden statue of Thom Yorke just yet.

posted by Bekah at 10:50 AM :: |