A Blinding Sonic Blast

Maybe this doesn’t ring true for everyone (and indeed it can’t, there are no true universals anymore), but it rings true for me and many other people. I would put forth that music has a huge influence (along with a million other things, I know) on how people are raised, and who they grow up to be. I can’t say anything conclusive from the parental side of it, but it sure makes sense to me that it would be true, but back to my point. It seems to me that if someone grows up with angry music, they may grow up angry. That doesn’t imply violence, or revolutionary-ism (yay, new word), only that they grew up that way, and that may be what they strive to be different from in their “grown up” life. They may have also grown up in a musical environment like mine, that consisted of “We can rule the world/Love, Peace, Dope/realist” music. I’ve been recently going back and re-acquiring all the music I used to listen to, on my moms cd’s and on the radio, and wherever else I would have heard it. Going out and finding all the music I “Grew up on” and thus loved at the time, because I was small and music, among other things, was my life to an extent. For the first time, I’ve finally started listening to the lyrics, and trying to understand, within the context of the singer, the time, and the song, what they mean. It, other than some sort of religious “awakening” (Anyone who knows me is laughing right now), is the most enlightening thing I’ve ever done, and possibly will ever do, but I hate discounting the possibility of the future. It has shown me, other than how my mother raised me, why I am me. It is the single other primary cause of why I am, who I am. And I am thankful for that, as I wouldn’t be me without me. I can trace my unique outlook on everything back to that music. My mother was a scientist, and for that I am very grateful as I didn’t have to grow up in a religious (READ: repressive) family for most of my life, yet thats what the rest of my immediate family is. I had the combination experience of the particular musical taste my mother had, her outlook on life, and the repressive family structure and social structure of the rest of my family (whom I had to visit for visitation with my father at the time), and I am better for it. I do not know if this same sort of situation applies to other kids, and maybe it will take them well into their 30s or 40s to figure something like this out, I don’t know, but I hope so. I would imagine the tunes might be different, and the parenting style, and everything else I’ve described, and yet they too can be the better for it. For this, I hope.