Music

I had this dream the other night that people actually became more cohesive and unified because of and through music. Chuck this up to too much positive thought (I really need to read Ehrenreich’s new book, Bright Sided) or perhaps way too much GLEE, but I really think that music can bring us together.



I started singing the Beatles’s song “Come Together” in class the other day, and my students were receptive to the idea. We were doing a sort of informal mid-term evaluation of the class, and so discussion was sort of all over the place. At some point, I deformed into “True Confessions” moment and started talking about this dream I had.

It was of a society that was completely devoid of art. So I was sitting in this huge college auditorium, and this envoy from our world was there and was projecting film titles that she was going to transport into our collective unconscious. Well, she started singing, and people in the audience were shocked—beggging her to continue. Really weird, I know, but it was a dream?! Anyways, music actually, literally brought together people in my dream. Students started singing, and people would gather around this minstrel voices roaming the campus. People cried at the beauty of music. People danced the rhythms of the body.

Maybe GLEE is finally starting to get to me. But I really do think that music is such a unique force in society. I don’t know where this was really going, and I’m not sure what I got here but …