A Nihilist Who Cares

There’s a guitar and a banjo in my head.

I just saw the local Vancouver band The River and The Road live. Music (especially live music) is an odd force. It seems to me to be a force for chaos. How could it not be, being such a powerful outlet of passion, emotion, and angst?  A good song must turn the most rigid, orderly, and uncompromising of us into a very capricious person. Every good song I hear is the best thing I’ve ever heard – while I hear it.

Really good music has a lingering presence in the mind. It makes you imagine your life as film with it as the soundtrack. It changes who you are, and it changes who you wish you were - so long as it stays with you.

And we can thank the musicians – the agents of chaos – to give those of us with no musical ability a chance to experience the best thing we’ve ever heard again and again, each time we hear it.

And I know it will change soon, but for now I have a guitar and a banjo in my head.