The music in all of us
The first time I told my wife I loved her, we were driving in my car, and I was singing along to Frankie Valli’s Can’t Take My Eyes Off You. At the end of the second verse, after Valli sings, “You’re just too good to be true / Can’t take my eyes off you,” the exuberant chorus begins, “I love you, baby….” I hadn’t really intended to say those words, in that moment, but there they were. I did mean them, and she knew. Can’t Take My Eyes Off You would ultimately become our song. How could it not be?
Music has long been considered a universal language, transcending the barriers of speech, culture, and other differences to communicate emotions and forge connections among people. This has now been affirmed by multiple scientific studies in the fields of psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, neuroscience, and others.
In a world often divided by language, politics, and beliefs, music is a powerful unifier, capable of bridging those divides and connecting us at the most fundamental level. These studies reinforce the idea that music has a unique ability to weave together the threads of emotion, consciousness, and our shared humanity. Some of these studies even suggest how music works, how it speaks directly to our bodies and our emotions.
It would have been difficult, if not impossible, or just plain crazy, to try to imagine my life with Stephanie more than 30 years later. The beauty of that moment was in its immediacy and its relevance to our present. And that song captured that moment. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, we were listening to Beyonce’s new album in the car, this time two of our children were with us. I had already heard the first two singles from Cowboy Carter, but I really didn’t know what to expect from the rest of the album. When II Most Wanted came on, Beyonce’s duet with Miley Cyrus, I was unexpectedly overwhelmed, tearful for reasons I couldn’t quite explain. Driving on California’s Route 1, distracted by my family in the car, I only half heard the lyrics, but still the song hit a nerve.
I know we’re jumpin’ the gun,
And we’re both still young
But one day, we won’t be— From “II Most Wanted” by Beyonce (2024)
This lyric appears twice in the song. The first time it’s sung by Cyrus. But the second time, at the end of the song, it’s Beyonce’s delivery of the lyric that I can’t shake. The song is from the perspective of two young lovers, who know they’re young and who also seem to understand that youth is fleeting. But I know they can’t really understand. First, they need to live that long themselves. And then, they need to make it through all those years still together.
In addition to studying music as a universal language, neuroscientists, psychologists, and others have also been focusing their attention on how music affects our brains and how it might be used to facilitate health and healing. Recently, the Global Council on Brain Health released a report concluding that music has “significant potential to enhance brain health and well-being for individuals of different ages and different levels of health.”
Music may enhance child development in terms of language, attention, perception, cognition, and social-emotional development. In one study following early music education, students not only showed improvements in their musical skills, but after three or more years in the study, students also began to perform better on tasks unrelated to music, improving executive function, working memory, delayed gratification, and language and auditory processing.
Researchers are also exploring whether music may prove to be a helpful therapy for people experiencing depression, anxiety, and more serious mental health conditions. One study found that heart surgery patients who received half an hour of music therapy after the operation had significantly lower self-reports of depression and anxiety than those who rested or received conventional medical check-ins in the same time frame.
The impact of music on older adults’ well-being is also of interest to researchers. An AARP study found that music has a small but statistically significant impact on older people’s self-reported mental well-being, depression, and anxiety. Similarly, music therapy may help verbal fluency and memory in people with Alzheimer’s disease, and singing in a choir may reduce loneliness and increase interest in life. Even more surprising, music therapy may help older adults with Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders improve their gait, stability, and coordination, reducing falls.
Without a doubt, music is special. It’s like a food that’s not only good for you, but it’s also fun to make, delicious to eat, and better to share.
My college roommate loved music. He also loved reading, drawing, and painting. He had a peculiar sense of humor. He appreciated unique people and loved odd characters in literature and film. He took me to see $2 film screenings at our college science auditorium of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He introduced me to music that wasn’t like the pop music I was used to listening to. He liked Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, Joni Mitchell, and Rickie Lee Jones.
When Chris died a few years ago, I was overwhelmed by so many memories of him and our years together, but it was music that pulled these memories together for me. It was the music that I returned to for comfort and connection to him. So many lyrics ran through my mind from those years. I read these lines from Living It Up at his memorial.
Well at first when it was this way
When they’re the only ones
And you’ve got all these ideas
You never tell to anyone
There are always magnets
Pulling each of you there
Living every story, you’d dare
To be the only ones
The only ones
Oh, who are living it up
Oh yeah, we’re living it up….— From Living It Up by Rickie Lee Jones (1981)
What makes music unique among forms of artistic expression? Isn’t a painting or a sculpture able to speak to people across cultural or geographic divides? Nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer considered music to be the greatest of all artforms, because unlike painting, sculpture, or even writing, music is an expression of itself rather than something else. Melodies can simply be appreciated for what they are. Consequently, when we listen to music, we feel connected to a higher truth, whatever that truth may be.
Schopenhauer’s chief work, The World as Will and Representation, essentially divides the physical world into that which we perceive as a representation of something and that which simply is, our innermost nature or underlying force. “Music,” wrote Schopenhauer, “is by no means like the other arts, the copy of the Ideas, but the copy of the Will itself, whose objectivity the Ideas are. This is why the effect of music is so much more powerful and penetrating than that of any of the other arts, for they only speak of shadows, but it [music] speaks of the thing itself.”
I don’t consider myself a disciple of metaphysics, but I do believe that, to a large extent, the world is what we perceive it to be. And I also believe that music speaks directly to something inside us. Schopenhauer, of course, was speaking of “pure” music, that is, music without lyrics. But I actually think lyrics only strengthen the argument and add to the power of music. While a melody can draw you to a song, it’s often the lyrics that can make you want to live in it. And when you read a song’s lyrics, the associated melody is leading you to read them at a pace and with a cadence that becomes essential to your understanding of them.
When our kids were young, I would read to them before bed, but I also sang to them. As much as I really do love to sing, I have extremely limited range, and I’m usually out of tune. But the ritual seemed important to my children. Eventually, we settled into a comfortable rhythm of three songs. Each was reasonably easy to sing, with lyrics that felt like an extension of their bedtime stories. When I look back at these songs now, with my kids much older, mostly out of the house, I see these songs with fresh eyes. I suspect they do as well. The bittersweet lyrics just hit different now.
I hope you sing along as you read these lyrics and think about how you connect to them.
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true— From Over the Rainbow by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg (1939)
Well, I’ve got a hammer
And I’ve got a bell
And I’ve got a song to sing
All over this land
It’s the hammer of justice
It’s the bell of freedom
It’s the song about love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land— From “If I Had a Hammer” by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays (1949)
A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant’s rings make way for other toys
One gray night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff, that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar— From “Puff the Magic Dragon” by Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow (1969)
Music feels important to us for many reasons, and it influences our lives in many ways. So many of our experiences become deeply associated with music. Hearing that music again can trigger those memories in ways that transport us, making those experiences feel alive in us again. Music can also help us escape from our present, soothing painful emotions or giving us relief from a difficult experience. Sometimes we experience music as we would other forms of art. We can use music as a creative outlet, or we can get lost in music as we would a book or film.
Sometimes music can influence us directly. It can change our perception of the world or of ourselves. This influence can be something we take with us for a long time, maybe our entire lives. Music is also uniquely social. We experience music with our friends — and often, as in the case of live music, with strangers as well. Perhaps because of this, music can help us feel less alone and more connected to others. Lyrics can speak to us, and as we listen to our favorite songs repeatedly, as we do, we can take even more meaning from them.
Seven years ago, we dropped our oldest son Max at college. The weight of that milestone was unbelievably heavy. It actually hit our whole family hard, including Max’s younger siblings. Shortly after, I penned song lyrics about the experience. I wanted to capture how I was feeling in a way that felt genuine and true yet also somehow universal. I’d never written lyrics before, but it seemed appropriate for the feelings I was trying to convey. I don’t play any music, and I certainly don’t write music, but I heard these words as a song.
I thought it was my turn
It can’t be over yet
Is my work here done?
Is this all we get?I didn’t expect it
To hit me like this
I’m so happy for you
But what did I miss?Letting you go
Now / Letting you move
On / Letting you grow
Up / Finding the strength
To / See what’s nextI know you still need me
I’m not going away
But I’ll be farther and smaller
There’s no other wayI have to believe
I’ve done what I can
This is your start, son
I’ve given all that I amLetting you go
Now / Letting you move
On / Letting you grow
Up / Finding the strength
To / See what’s next
For me
When I read these words now, I still feel the impact of that moment, but I also have new perspective. I’ve since dropped two more children at college. The words also apply to them, but those children are different, those experiences were different, and I’m different. I was 50 when I dropped Max at college, now I’m 57. The years pass quickly, and when I think about what’s next for me, the question has more urgency.
Schopenhauer would find these lyrics lacking potency, insufficient without music — and I have to agree. Maybe I’ll be able to put them to music one day. Maybe then these lyrics will come closer to expressing the thing itself, and not just my own inadequate representation of it. I’d really appreciate being able to listen to that song.
