Poems, Prayers, & Proclamations

Musing on the Gift of Music


When she plays, something metaphysical happens in my body. I enter other planes of existence, enjoying new realities around me. I’m hypnotized. I become the Manchurian candidate, responding to that one–single note which transforms me. I must mind the music… its power transforms the moment and temperature in the room.

Like a forbidden lover, he wraps his arms around me and then in a slow, Barry White-kind of voice assures me everything will be alright! She becomes my keeper; she lets me play my heartstrings but warns me to always protect my sensitive parts. Even the exhibitionists who hide nothing, but their emotions, will, at the most inopportune time, fall under her spell when they feel the heat that is her beat. No matter where they are… they have no other choice but to express themselves.

And so… the beat goes on, always telling a story, sometimes hidden in metaphor, sometimes without words, sometimes so brutally honest it cuts, leaving you with open wounds oozing with puss. She can truly piss me off sometimes; I just want to turn her off, but she plays on and on in my head. I change the channel, change direction but she follows me. Unable to stop my ears from hearing what she keeps screaming at me, I curse!

I try to create my own distraction, an offbeat syncopation… bah bah bah bah do dah dah dah, trying to drown out the truth… as if a truth unheard is no longer the truth… Don’t be fooled by the intention of her beat. How did she know she could speak of such things? Mama would say, “Baby, the music always knows.” I keep my secrets close. Your secrets, however, that’s another story; turn up the volume, let the music play; she’s playing my song.

Those souls for whom sound has no meaning, can get no satisfaction. Silence is the gift that moves them, the vibration of life permeating the inward rhythm and rhyme all to itself, yet, never alone, that inner beat is the one note that connects them to us and us to them; it’s soul music. But I want to feel something when she plays, capture the essence of the character she portrays!

Emote, please; I need to feel. There’s no worse connection than a superstar performing a scene requiring tears, at which she only musters a few dry sounds simulating pain. Girl, please, kill me softly! I want to believe. Take my breath away; I want to remember my first love.

I want to be reminded of an old friend; I want to forget the pain; I want to feel the rhythm of my uncle’s old blues guitar; I want to feel a chill running down my spine and butterflies in my stomach, sweaty palms….  If you refuse to play, I am alone. If I can’t see, feel, hear, and sense you, am I even alive?

Every chord, every verse, every resound, every word you say, always end with me wanting more of you, more of life. You give meaning to all who can receive it. I hit replay a thousand times… And you return to me; I exhale; I bow to serve you; I open myself; I fall in love all over again!

So, please, let the music play!

~Randy Lewis

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