My friend Gerard posted a comment over the weekend that I have been thinking about constantly. The heart of the comment was “Why do we like the music that we like?” It was a very simple and straight forward question but as hard as I have tried I cannot come up with a simple answer. I haven’t given up…….when I come up with a good response I will post about it. In the meantime, I encourage other people to post replies to Gerard’s comments with their answers.
I bring up Gerard’s comment today because the subject of today’s post is a good example of why his question is so hard for me to answer. I fell in love with a song called Under The Milky Way the first time I heard it and it is still one of my all time favorite songs. I don’t love The Church, the group that recorded the song, although they are quite talented. I bought their album, Starfish, that contained Under The Milky Way and never bought anything else that they recorded. Hell, I never really even seriously listened to any of the other songs on the album…..but I wore out the vinyl grove for Under The Milky Way. Why????
It’s not a complicated song but it speaks to me in a strange way that I can’t explain. The lyrics are great but there are phrases that I latch onto and identify with………
And it’s something quite peculiar,
Something that’s shimmering and white.
Leads you here despite your destination,
Under the milky way tonight
It is a mystery to me but I will figure this out and we will talk about it more in future posts. For now let’s listen to three different version of Under The Milky Way (the original, an interesting acoustic version, and a version that the group performed in 2010 when they were inducted in the Australian Recording Hall Of Fame)…………
Official Video
Acoustic Version
Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) Hall Of Fame 2010
Does this song affect anyone else or is it just me???
thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard 
Mike,
I’ll have a first try…..
it’s about my emotions; when I see the documentary of Simon & Garfunkel and I read the story of JFK and his brother and MLK and hear at the same time the music, lyrics en rhythm of some of the songs of these boys I’m “touched” .
Touched by my questions about why people do kill other people, touched by my anger about it, touched by seeing the poverty of many people and the extreme richness of other people on the other hand and touched by the statement that I can’t do very much about it. So sadness prevails.
At other times when I’m joyfull I like “rough” music with a strong rhythm and well written lyrics. And sometimes I like “against the wind” when I think about the period that I tried to find my own way of life (in my youth).
Sometimes I like classical music, when I’m in a contemplating mood.
It’s all about different emotions I think. Those emotions prescribe the outcome of my “liking”
Hope it’s a start for the discussion. 🙂 🙂