If you want to sing out...

Here I sit, listening to Cat Stevens, eating a bologna sandwich and drinking Mountain Dew. If only this moment could last forever...

Music (like Mountain Dew) can be so healing. Sadly, I know this moment can't last as I'm about to start working (and will likely be working by the time I can finish this and get it posted). Isn't it weird that there are people out there that don't care for music? Or at least don't get too excited about it? I just don't understand. Doesn't there have to be some piece of music that moves you, no matter who you are? Yet I've actually ran into people that seem rather indifferent. Do these people have emotions? I don't get it. I've been using music for medicinal purposes for years.

Speaking of good music, might I recommend Cat Stevens for a quick lift o' the spirit. I'd be tempted to consider him a favorite, but I don't think he qualifies, at least not yet. I haven't really listened to him much outside of a greatest hits compilation I once got from the library. Even still, I sense some strong potential. He's got catchy, simplistic, and life-loving melodies and lyrics. If you're not familiar with him, I urge you to check him out. If you need more sensory stimulation than that, you can check him out via the film Harold and Maude. He did the music for it, and the film and his musical style correlate perfectly. There's a couple of songs from the movie that I like to imagine playing and singing to my children one day. But his other stuff is also great. I almost think I'd like "Morning Has Broken" to be played at my funeral, but that's probably a whole different posting altogether...

Speaking of Cat Stevens not qualifying as one of my favorite musicians, I have a somewhat anal retentive pet peeve - the fact that almost everybody in existence lists music as one of their hobbies. If you're human (and not one of those non-music-appreciating exceptions mentioned above), you obviously enjoy music. That does not make it a hobby. If you put it as a hobby, you darn well better be a musician yourself, or collect it to some obsessive extreme, or be very knowledgeable about musical history, or something that puts you outside the range of "normal appreciator." Just because you rarely drive without the stereo on does not make music your "hobby." Also, you should not be qualifying bands as your favorite simply because they are the most recent thing on the radio to strike your fancy. If you classify an artist as a favorite, it is absolutely required that you have both heard and thoroughly enjoyed songs by this artist that are not played on the radio. You must have heard at least dozen songs or so by the artist, unless, and only in rare exceptions, the few that you have heard were so bleepin' good they redefined your very existence. It is also questionable that an artist could be appropriately deemed a favorite if you do not own one of their albums, unless it is simply because you have not had the chance to purchase one since you discovered the artist (or had their albums stolen from you, or whatever). The way some people list music as a hobby, they'd be just as justified to put "taking a leak" as a hobby. What do all my readers think (yes, both of you!)? Am I too restrictive in my definition of "hobby" and "favorite"?