Listen to the Music

What the people need
Is a way to make them smile...
Oh, oh listen to the music,
Oh, oh listen to the music.
-Doobie Brothers

Listening to the Doobie Brothers on the radio while I was driving home today. It's not often I switch away from the country station, but every once in a while I get too many commercials and I start pressing all the buttons in search of something else. And I hit on the Doobie Brothers. It brought me back to the first concert I ever attended. It was an outdoor concert with Steve Miller, the Doobie Brothers, and the Eagles. One heck of a concert! So who else have I heard in concert?

Harry Chapin before he died...that was at a college campus. Heard him sing his famous Cat's in the Cradle song and several others. Not too bad. Heard Kenny Loggins at another college campus. That was only so-so. I heard John Denver which was a good concert. Neil Diamond too, in his prime. That was excellent. All of those were in the late 70s.

Then I started listening to Country Music. I've been to live concerts for George Strait, Kathy Mattea, Dwight Yokum (3 times), Toby Keith, Luke Bryan, Little Big Town, Sugarland, Billy Currington, Billy Dean, Randy Travis, Hiway 101, Tim McGraw, Gordon Lightfoot, Reba McIntyre, Patty Lovelace, and Kenny Chesney.

All of them an incredible pool of talent and worth singing to. My sister has an excellent singing voice. I don't. Or at least I don't feel I do. My father, whether he realized it or not, made comments about me singing off-key when I was a child that made me feel ashamed about my singing so I tried not to sing around others. That was unfortunate. It would have been far better to help me learn to sing on-key because in hind-sight, if I had an ear for instrumental music, I could have been taught to sing on-key. Instead, I grew up ashamed of my singing and saved it for times when I was alone, like in the car. Or later when I was the adult and sang to my children. But it still haunts me. I won't start the Happy Birthday song in a group if I can help it. I have my daughter do it because I am too self-conscious.

But I love turning up the radio in the car and singing to these songs. So often I think of the minstrels and poets of long ago. The songwriters and singers of today are our poets. And the songs that were written 20 or 30 years ago that still get radio play like this Doobie Brothers song are the ones that you know still resonate with people.

We'll be happy and we'll dance
Oh we're going to dance the blues away
And if I'm feeling good to you
And you're feeling good to me
There aint nothing we can't do or say
Feeling good, feeling fine
Oh baby, let the music play.