Music serves as an important emotional backdrop for beginnings and endings, and everything in between.

With music, as with life, we sometimes don’t understand what we are hearing until much, much later.

I’m one of those people who often doesn’t listen to lyrics; although if they are great lyrics, I generally do. You know, anything by The Tragically Hip, Led Zeppelin, some of the semi-lucid ravings of Kurt Cobain.

Let’s face it though, most of the lyrics out there aren’t great lyrics. And much like many of the mundane lyrics we hear day in and day out, the days pass, often with little of importance being said by or to us; sometimes things of importance are said but are not heard. And that is the way of things I suppose.

I think many of us have a soundtrack to our lives. For some it is quite conscious; mixed tapes in the eighties, CD’s burned off Napster in the late 90’s, and now playlists. For others it emerges by accident, or at least by serendipity.

You know what I’m talking about: you hop in the car to take off for a road trip just to exorcise a bad week or month or year from your memory, and the radio is playing Martina McBride’s This One’s For the Girls. Followed by Knee Deep by the Zac Brown Band. Followed by Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing by Chris Isaak (on a different station, obviously). I don’t know if the universe was trying to tell me or if I was determined to tell the universe I was embarking on one hell of a road trip, but that sendoff certainly did’t hurt.

For people like me who are always seeing meaning and pattern and connection in the events of their lives, these moments are pivotal, defining even. I know that there are dozens of “logical” explanations for how signs or symbols appear or happen or become noticeable only at certain times in our lives. But I don`t think why it happens is nearly as important as the fact that it happened, and how it makes us feel.

Does it matter that the song Red Red Wine makes me think of dancing in a bar in Banff when I was nineteen, rather than anything that actually has to do with that song, or its lyrics? Of course not. What matters is that it makes me feel like a carefree college student that just wants to dance, instead of whatever haggard, beleaguered, or defeated version of myself I am wrestling with on any given day.

For six months now, my IPhone has been defaulting to play the songs on it in alphabetical order, and the song that queues up, repeatedly, is Accusations by the Skydiggers. Luckily, I didn’t get sick of it the first 400 times I listened to it on a cassette tape many years ago, which usually is a guarantee that I never will. And my kids don’t mind it either, which is saying something.

It has started to make me laugh now, when I plug in my IPhone, or my bluetooth in my car just syncs up and starts playing it before I have a chance to decide on a musical theme for the moment. Because regardless of what it’s about (I still don`t quite know), I know this:

It reminds me of a simpler time.

It is upbeat and catchy, easily singable, and it makes my heart sing and my soul dance each time I hear it.

It reminds me that no matter what is going on in my life, I can always make a new decision and start afresh.

It reminds me that people are going to think what they are going to think, lie if they want to lie, and do what they need to do so they can sleep at night.

And that is the way of things, I suppose.

It reminds me that no matter what else happens, there is still that little girl inside me with the mischievous glint in her eye and crooked smile.

She is a fireball, she is courageous and full of joy, and when she comes out to play, there will be a story or six to tell.

I am Tara Ewashy and I can do whatever the hell I want. Because I`ve done it before and I shall do it again.

Just watch me.

Accusations all around, you didn’t know this is nothing new

Accusations up and down you, now you don’t know what to do

Accusations confound you Graham says we need some proof

Accusations surround you why don’t you try the truth

Everybody wants to shake you up to put you down

Everybody wants to wrap you up and tie you down

Conversations well spoken you know this is nothing new

Conversations, promises broken, now I don’t know what to do

Everybody wants to build you up to pull you down

Everybody wants to tie you up and tie you down

Not me, not me, no,  not me

Accusations all around you

Accusations all around you

Accusations all around you

 

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Editorial Assistant: Edith Lazenby / Editor: Renee Picard

Photo: uTube