I don’t do this often, (which is to say that nobody listens to me do it very often) but I’m making an Executive Decision.
If you have your headphones in, and are listening to an FM radio, CD player, a personal MP3 player (which is my choice) or even a tape based Walkman, you need to enjoy your music. And don’t just enjoy your music, show us how much you are enjoying it.
I was rocking my way to class the other day, getting my Massive in Mench on, and I began to spot other people listening to music as I was. Most of these were iPod listeners, and all of them were twenty-somethings, but all of them were so very morose.
Music is supposed to be fun, these people didn’t look like they were enjoying it at all. I can understand not headbopping and lip syncing if you are listening to Talk Radio or a book on tape, but why act all deadpan with Scooter or Soilwerk or The Beatles or Great Big Sea or Captain Tractor or… ok I have to stop listing now or I’ll never stop… with all that good music blasting into your poor puny eardrums with great vigor?
Bounce your head up and down with the beat, tap your toes, snap your fingers, mouth the words along, maybe even crack a smile and look like your having a good time. You paid hundred of dollars for that iPod; make it worth it.
People relax at home, or in their car. They belt out their favorite Alanis Morissette songs or wail with Celine Dion or Elton John with gay abandon (original meaning of gay, not the newer fruitier one). But give them headphones and put them in a crowd and suddenly they go all stone faced. (Note: I don’t link those because they aren’t recommendations. )
When I go out with my earbuds in, and my Creative Zen Xtra loaded up with Reel Big Fish, New Found Glory, No Use for a Name, Goldfinger, and a healthy dose of Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies, I try to show everybody what good a time I’m having. I headbang. I lip sync. I have been known to air guitar. If there were banisters to slide down, I would make great use of them. If there was an ephemeral choreographer perched in my brain telling me to “Turn, step, heel, kick, turn, kick step!” then I would glide through my fellow pedestrians like a lone outcast of a production of Grease. I would make people jealous of my tunes. They would turn to utter strangers with them in the quad and say
“What the heck is he listening to?”
How would that not make the world a better place?
I’m feeling better
As if you cared.
I was playing Texas Flood, in Guitar Hero today and found myself having an awesome time. I didn’t know I liked Stevie Ray Vaughan, but Pandora is teaching me that I really do.