It's something that just gets down in your bones/baby/And once I see you I can't leave your love alone/Ya, heh, baby/aw, make me happy baby, aw, make me happy baby, let me sing,/Sha la la la- la la la/oh baby/Sha la la la-- la la la,/oh baby...
"Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy)" – Al Green
I think I found the key. It’s been lost for a while to be sure and the truth of the matter is I’ve known where I should be looking for a long time, I’ve just chosen to ignore it.
Have you ever seen the movie High Fidelity? I’m sure I’ve referenced it on several occasions, great flick, one of my favorites. The main character Rob, played by John Cusack, delivers one of the best lines, in my opinion, in movie history:
“What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”
Well Rob, the key to our sadness is also the key to this boy’s happiness.
Music, it’s always been music, but like some quest for the Holy Grail, finding just the right singer or song to help drag you out of your pain and misery is the search.
Hank works when you need a soundtrack for the bar and someone to help you put a tear in your beer. Any number of bands serve the purpose of setting that “just right” feeling when you’ve got the windows down on the car, the winds blowing, and you’re making a straight bee-line for nowhere in particular.
Some people use drugs to dull their pain, some rely on alcohol to temporarily salve the pain, some take solace in their church or their circle of friends. For me the answer is finding that song; I really love that song.
I used to be able to rely on Otis Redding.
If the day was really going bad, just pull an Otis record from off the shelf and out of the cardboard sleeve, blow the dust off, and gently let the needle fall onto the grooves. Hear the warm crackle-crackle-pop-pop of vinyl telling your brain to soothe itself, introducing the slow groove of "Dock of the Bay." But Otis hasn’t been cutting it lately, the funk was too overpowering, the rut too deep.
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