"If my life was cinematic / with a soundtrack so dramatic..."

Sometimes I think the coolest job I could have would be to be that person who picks out the music for movies (and some t.v. shows, the good ones)...although I kinda doubt that's an actual job. But i don't think i'd actually be very successful with it, because my approach would be all backwards. I wouldn't be able to read a scene and know the perfect song -- i hear a song and know the perfect scene that could be built around it. and I just doubt any producer would let someone build a non-musical, regular movie around pre-selected music because...that would be too creative, but anyway....

I've realized I really think of nearly all music as part of a soundtrack. I "see" a scene when a song moves me (which is often), and usually the scenes are from my life, either the past or something i see in the future, because the songs that move me most are the ones that somehow speak in some familiar language directly to my heart. Even ones without words. Have you ever had tears come to your eyes just at the beauty of a song without words? If you haven't, you're not listening carefully.

I really do often think of my life as a movie, as silly as that may sound to some people, and there are dozens of songs i've found that are perfectly fitted to different parts of it. literally. as in, i could play you the Soundtrack of My Life if i wanted...it's right there in my iTunes. :) And one thing that is so striking to me about that songlist is that at least half of them are entirely tension-ridden....I've always been moth-to-a-flame attracted to tension in music, to "unresolvedness," to minor keys, to both passionate outbursts and consciously restrained chords...

I've always thought I was so strange because of that...But I think it really does make sense, at least in mi mente. Life to me seems like one long thread of tension, good and bad. There will always be something that is going to happen; even if nothing is happening, that means something. Resolution in this life is an impossibility, I believe, and people who are looking for that and expect to find it will not only be disappointed, but will miss out on a lot. A lot. As Matt Slocum wrote, "tension is to be loved, when it is like a passing note to a beautiful, beautiful chord"...

Maybe that's the optimist in me (sidenote: i've recently declared myself a cynic to some people, but let me just say that it's possible to be both a cynic and an optimist...but don't ask how, i don't know), that and my own experiences which have affirmed the truth of that lyric..




Sorry to get so esoteric and abstruse on you dear readers; that's what happens when i listen to Zoe Keating. who will burn your heart out and take your breath away, by the way. at least, if you're me..