#132 Playing music so loud you forget where you are

Get lost, elevator jazz. Hang up, hold music. Pack your bags, grocery store soundtrack.

Your whispering background noise is an insult to music everywhere.

Yes, when the soul-lifting beauty of music dissolves into fluorescent-dim worlds of three-piece suits, can-clinking carts, and phone calls to cable companies, it becomes Music Wallpaper – polite, pleasant, pastel-pasted.

Loud music demands attention.

Booming tunes shush coffee table conversations, ringing cell phones, and scattering thoughts. When songs slam your brain, bass shakes your bones, and chest-clenching notes sponge into you, it’s like you suddenly slip outside of being you…

1. Dark dance parties. I was hanging at my apartment a few weeks ago with old friends from school. After clinking drinks and chatting about old times we suddenly shoved all the furniture to the side, flicked off the lights, and cranked up the music. Mortgage rates, back pain, and job fears all disappeared into darkness as we slipped and skidded across sliding floors. Sweaty bangs, big smiles, and twenty-finger cracks squeakily lowered the velvety curtains on the backdrop of the world.

2. Airplane escapes. Cranking your headphones on long flights helps you slip into safe spaces in strange places. Rip-rocketing through thunderstorms at breakneck speeds in liquidless, security-screened worlds of emergency exits, recycled air, and screaming babies can be stressful. So pull on your hoodie, close your eyes, and slouch deep into the blaring abyss.

3. Midnight drives. Fresh farm air rips through open windows, painted lanes whip by, and skunk and hay bales fill your car as you twist down empty roads on your way home. Let the bumping radio snap you to attention and sing-a-long on the dark drive home.

Yes, loud music demands attention.

Suddenly all the energy the band bucketpoured into the recording flies straight out of your speakers and into your heart. Drum beats revolve as your worries dissolve and cymbals crash to pieces as your brain finally releases.

Let your self float away.

AWESOME!

Photos from: Lumperjack and Laura Galley