Can Music Save Your Mortal Soul? Yup!

“If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: ‘The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music.'”  --Kurt Vonnegut

Music has saved me more times than I can remember.

When I stood next to my father's casket on the day of his funeral, as the mournful notes of the Navy hymn, "Eternal Father Strong to Save", floated up to heaven. I knew he would be ok where he was going and that I would be ok too.

Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm hath bound the restless wave, Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep, Its own appointed limits keep, O hear us when we cry to thee, For those in peril on the sea!

Music saved me when I had my very first slow dance, on a warm spring night, in my fourteenth year, in a cafeteria transformed into a dance hall, at the local junior high school. My partner and I moved and swayed to the music, caught up in adolescent angst and joy, as “Nights in White Satin” showed us the way.

Nights in white satin, Never reaching the end, Letters I've written, Never meaning to send, Beauty I'd always missed, With these eyes before, Just what the truth is, I can't say anymore, Cause I love you!

Music has saved me from COVID, in a way, too.

When on most Wednesday nights, since a year ago this month, I sit in the quiet of my dining room at the table, all alone, and yet in community, as my local choir sings through a song like “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. We are on Zoom, separated and yet, we sing together. All together.

Someday I'll wish upon a star, Wake up where the clouds are far behind me, Where trouble melts like lemon drops, High above the chimney tops that's where, You'll find me, oh, somewhere over the rainbow….      

If you go back in time, in sweet memory, you’ll remember too, the times music has saved you. Soothed you. Taught you. Held you. Comforted you. Excited you. Singing “Silent Night” in a candlelit church on a chilly December evening, or chanting the Kaddish, a prayer for the dead, in a synagogue among the mourners. Or dancing with your new bride, your new groom, to Frank Sinatra at your wedding, so many years ago and yet it was yesterday.

Fly me to the moon, Let me play among the stars, Let me see what spring is like on, Jupiter and Mars, In other words, hold my hand, In other words, baby, kiss me…You are all I long for, All I worship and adore…

Music saves us because there is nothing else like it in our human experience. It is at once mystical and unambiguous, primordial and simple, whether “Mary Had a Little Lamb” or Handel’s “Messiah” or James Brown’s “I Feel Good”.  Music mirrors the steady rhythm and beating of our hearts. It connects us to our deepest selves and desires, to others, when we sing in unison, and to God. For all the notes are given to us by the ultimate music maker, by the holy One, by the Creator of all that is good and beautiful and creative and inspiring. 

Music stays while other memories fade away.  We can’t remember when to pay a bill or what we had for breakfast yesterday or the definition of a word that’s right on the tip of our tongue and yet…When the notes of a certain pop song, from some childhood summer long ago, play on the radio, the words all come back to us, in a rush, as if we are transported back in time, and so we sing right along, hitting every beat, knowing every lyric.

Music: when the world opens back up again, the one thing I want to do, almost more than anything else, is to just sing and sing with others, in harmony. Sing at the top of my lungs until my voice is hoarse. Sing at the church I serve and sing in and with my beloved choir, my precious friends whom I miss, so, so much.

Sing at the party I will host for that choir. I pray that one night soon, fifty or sixty of us will gather in my home and we will pile into the living room and perform in that wildest of singing modes—KARAOKE! Someone will ask to sing a song we all know by heart and we will mark our regathering with a song. A song to celebrate the return.

Did you write the book of love, And do you have faith in God above, if the Bible tells you so? Now, do you believe in rock 'n' roll, Can music save your mortal soul, And can you teach me how to dance real slow?

What song will you sing?