dusting off the classics

I had been feeling a little musically ‘uninspired’ these past few weeks, the search for new music not turning up anything that immediately caught my ear. Some days are just like that, you know?

Some days you drink your coffee, you eat your breakfast and it’s great. You can feel the caffeine already making its way through the blood stream. Your eggs, your yogurt – whatever your breakfast of choice is, it tastes fantastic and its always enough to fill you up.

Simple tasks are demolished by your capable hands. The words NO, DEFEAT, LOSS – they don’t exist in in your vocabulary. Nope...some days you are simply a rock star and nothing can stand in you're way.

And then there’s those days where your coffee is just wrong. ALL wrong. It’s too dark or too weak and the milk curdles in it, in such a questionable way you check the date one more time, even though you know you’ve still got a week before it goes bad.

Your yogurt tastes the way the milk looks, your eggs blow, your cereal lasts just 3 minutes before it’s completely left its state of solidity, now transforming before your eyes into runny, liquid paper. Oh, and after battling to finish (simply because you lack all ambition to make something new), you’re left hungry and unsatisfied. You say to yourself..."Hey, at  least lunch is only 4 hours away."

The words –WRONG, ACCIDENT, TRY AGAIN – they’re smacking you in the face all day long and when you finally battle till the end, realizing that IF you were in fact a rock star, you would have done laundry two days ago and not worn the pants with the unidentifiable grey spot on the calf all day long.

I’ve found a simple caveat inbetween these two extremes, at least over the course of the past couple days. My breakfast doesn't suck, but it also doesn't taste great. I could eat, I could not eat – it could really go either way. I forgot to make coffee and I left my laundry in the washing machine (hey, at least it made it in there). And when I search for new music - a task that almost always leads to personal gratification – my vocabulary is now filled with words like SO-SO, WHATEVER, and the worst of them all, MEH.

And then I remembered something an old, but not forgotten friend once told me – “When you’re searching for inspiration, always go back to what you know. Go back to the basics.”

That’s what brought us here, after all. Sometimes staying on top of the parade of new music being produced is exhausting, and when 75% percent of it doesn't sound any different than what you've already heard before, the will to keep looking, to keep hunting for more, suddenly becomes lost. The same 6 podcasts, recycling the same 15 songs – as unfortunate as I’d like to admit, sometimes my favorite radio programs are like my soggy cereal.

So in keeping with that timeless advice, I've spent these past few days scouring the classics, searching the archives of my iTunes and re-pillaging if you will, the corners of the internet, all in the hopes of finding the musical inspiration my ears so desire.

And what had felt exhaustive only days before now feels renewed. With each new rediscovery I've felt excitement. There are just those songs that on the right occasion, leave you speechless.

You’ll be walking down the street, grabbing a coffee, or just reading the paper. You’ll be doing your thing, all the while listening to some music and all of a sudden a song will rise up, rise out from the rest and make itself known in your life. It’s as if as soon as they begin, they demand your attention. These kinds of songs don’t ask for respect, they require it. And the best part of these tunes, for ALL of us is that with each one come’s a beautiful memory.

I think I understand more than ever the importance of going back to your roots, of never forgetting where you came from. When we remind, renew, and relive the uplifting melodies that brought us where we are today, it’s like we nurture the original and perhaps most creative part of our self.

Take a moment to remember a song - the further back you go the better. A few years are alright, five is even better. If you can go back a decade and uncover a hidden gem, then you've really set yourself on a journey. 

Regardless of the number of years, when you've found that song, try and remember what it was like when you very first heard it. The collection of noises that someone brought together to make something unique and naturally profound, and for what feels like your ears alone. Relive those moments, whether plural or as one….inspiration is found here.

I don’t believe in a lot of things unseen, but I do believe in music, because it has made me see without my natural eyes.

When you find yourself in a state of apathy like I myself have recently struggled with, then perhaps you’re best solution is to go back in time and find the music that use to inspire you. More often than not, what once gave rise to a flame, will help ignite it again.