Tuesday, April 2, 2013

#AtoZChallenge "Black"

Flashback: Early 1990s. A young teenage girl is listening to her cassette tape Ten by Pearl Jam as she does her homework. She has listened to it dozens of times before, while reading and studying. But this time, it's different.

The haunting chords begin and suck her into an alternate universe. Her eyes close as Eddie's voice washes over her. Her meditation is so deep that she doesn't even notice when the next song begins. The loud pop of the cassette ending on that side jars her out of her reverie. 

She feels emotionally spent, yet cleansed at the same time. An obsession is now buried deep in her soul and her life will never be the same again.

That, my friends, is what happened to me one day when "Black" came on. Even though I had heard it before, somehow that day, it spoke to me in a way that nothing else ever had before. I had been a Pearl Jam fan for a while, but that moment triggered something new inside of me. To this day, I can be transported elsewhere by listening to their music. It heals me. It makes me laugh. It makes me cry. It fuels my writing, cleaning, reading, whatever I need to do.

This is one of the most heartwrenching songs I have ever heard. It hurts to hear it. Even when I hear it live, I end up closing my eyes, transported to another place, with tears streaming down my cheeks. I get really pissed at people who have to talk or yell when this song is being played. It's the ultimate experience.



This is a clip I found on YouTube from one of the shows I went to some years ago. Actually, I think this person was a couple of rows in front of us, because it's a familiar view. The crowd got really into this and made it emotional, as a collective experience.  

Even the Unplugged version, stripped down to bare essentials, is raw and emotional.
   

See, I even lost a half hour as I was looking for video versions to include in this post....

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