The Heartbeat of the Culture

I’m sitting here reading some Plato along with listening/watching the DVD that came in The Joshua Tree box set which is a DVD of a concert in Paris from The Joshua Tree tour.

Sunday Bloody Sunday came on and I started thinking about when I really heard the song for the first time and how it became such a force. You can see it in the crowds; the emotion they have for this anthematic prose that only U2 is capable of. If only I could have the power to move people like that…

I remember nights at the pubs. The Cabin springs to memory as soon as the drum beat comes from Larry Mullen Jr.’s drumkit and then the chiming notes from The Edge’s guitar…everyone makes a mad rush to the dance floor. Nowadays, it’s hard to call it a dance floor when a song like that comes on. It is a gathering of people singing their favourite song and lifting their hands up in unison to the beating of the drum. It’s an anthem and we are singing it as hard as Bono is.

Maybe that’s what I love about the crowd.

I then think of how I’ve been introduced to so many staples of music not through the radio, but through the songs played at the bar. To this date, I bet you a beer that we could walk into the Cabin on a Friday night and hear the following songs at some point: Mr. Jones, Sunday Bloody Sunday and Living on a Prayer. These are the songs that binds us together and creates a single heartbeat of the world that we share. That’s what I love about music. Even if you don’t know the song, you realize it’s something important from the movement of the crowd. It isn’t someone trying to show off their rug-cutting skills or their flashy clothes. It’s existing in that single moment with everyone around you where you feel the same exact way and you feel the need to get together to share that feeling.

Culturally there are dozens of these songs that are staples of a given event…weddings, pubs, elevator music (!)…I think it’s more than just being a hit on the radio that everyone knows. These songs have passed the test of time because of the constant need for them to be played in these social settings. Will there ever be a wedding without one AC/DC tune? Even some old school rap like the Funky Cold Medina. It’s fascinates me to think about these songs that entered our stamp on culture.

I’ve never realized how important these gatherings were in forming my love for music even more than before. Here is a place where I can listen or be introduced to some tunes that I love and share that love with others. Far better than hanging out in a basement with friends and talking about the brilliance of lyrics or a guitar line…you let your emotions flow out and simply rock (for lack of a better term).

I still get shivers whenever I see everyone go crazy for a song, even if I don’t know what it is. It’s the energy in the room that the song creates. THAT’S why I want to write music. THAT’S the feeling I wish to bring out in people.

iplaying: Sunday Bloody Sunday – U2 (Paris 1987 DVD)