Pause

Play.

"One thing about music is when it hits you, you feel no pain."

Pause!

Bullsh*t.

Then how do you explain that gut-wrenching feeling that I have every time I hear someone singing along to a SouljaBoy track?

Rewind.

I'm sure everyone has at least one song, that if played will reconnect them to a memory in their life and instantly evoke an ancient emotion. It's like pressing play on paused feelings. That's what makes good music great. The ability to emotionally connect people that have never met. The reason music can cross boundaries of gender, race, religion, status, and geographical demographics is because in it's simplest form it holds the few universal truths that everyone has experienced.

Happiness, sadness, anger, pain, love.
That's how you connect to millions. Relate on the most natural of conditions.

Pause.

Sidenote:
You know, our hearts don't actually look like those cookie-cutter shapes that we're used to that slightly resembles a pair of lips, or breasts, or an ass, or whatever Freudian-esk Rorschach response you see. Our hearts actually look more like a fist... wearing headphones. So while the Jersey Shore steadily fist pumps its way through the caving behind my ribs, I am reminded daily that music is what drives me.

Fast forward.

And how do you explain that emphatic joy that I experience every time Eminem starts yelling on a song and instantly dwarfs his peers?

Pause.

Now I know you might be saying, "That's different. That's happiness, not pain."
But isn't it those that make us those most happy that are able to put us through the most misery?
No?
Rewind to the second to last person that you fell in love with and then fast forward to the feelings you felt when they first broke your heart.

Pause.

How does it feel?

You see, love is giving someone everything they need to hurt you, but having faith that they won’t.
So when you say, "Oh my god, I love Beyoncé!" What you're really saying is, "I've invested my time, money and energy into this person who so far has lived up to their end of the bargain by delivering something that I thoroughly enjoy. But the minute she delivers a lackluster album, or considering your level of love for her... two lackluster albums, you're going to pack your bags, chuck up the deuce, and bounce with that 'don't call me, don't text me, stop trying to reach me through your videos on youtube' attitude."

Fast forward.

So, you see, if music can give you the highest of highs, then obviously it can deliver the lowest of lows. That's just the laws of nature. Like any child with a Lego set, you build things up to knock them down to build them up again. It's instinctual.

Rewind.

This started about music and pain.

Play.

"Hop up out my b..."

Skip!

Did that hurt you like it hurt me?
Anyway... Getting back on track. I guess my point of this is for everyone to remember, the next time they're rhythmically writhing with someone over the earth-shattering rumble of the bass and ear-ringing hiss of the tweeters... remember that the song that right now makes you yell, "That's my sh*t!" may one day cause you to say, "Turn that sh*t off!" All because of the melodic structure full of strategic chords and reflected reverberations that now resonates with a void in your heart that was created the day you chose to forget the words to your favorite song.

If that's not pain, I don't know what is.

Stop.


Live, love & learn!
-The King