Being Amused through Music

Described as a melodic slow jam with a subtle hypnotic draw, the song 'Calm Down' has carried me through a tough year of change.

The blend of English and Nigerian languages sung by Rema and Selena Gomez has been around since February 2022. Like a fine wine, it has aged with a depth and fullness that is the result of a strong base. The song relates how a fellow tries to comfort and convince the girl who has charmed him to have faith in the sincerity of his love.

Now the truth is after listening to the song hundreds of times, it is hard for me to know it is a love song. The language is unfamiliar and open to interpretation. For instance, the phrase 'have another banger' first made me think they had spent the night together , then had sausages and eggs for breakfast, or they were going to a head banging party. The fact that it might be a best-seller song escaped me in the confusion of words that are muddled in translation, and it really doesn't matter.

The song takes me to being a stranger in another country, where in spite of the greatest efforts, the words that are uttered are incomprehensible. After living in French speaking Europe for years, I recognize the problem of speaking and understanding the vernacular of an area. I remember listening and understanding what was said, until that one phrase, totally undoes all that went before- and made the difference between something being important or not important, true or false.

I wait for the refrain to come. 'baby calm down, calm down', reminiscent of 'hands up baby hands up .'

Give me your love is not necessarily implied in my interpretation of the song Calm down. It seems to a song about infatuation and lust, however, when I hear 'Calm down' it inspires taking a deep breath and exhale to relax and be still. Hands up suggests a far more of an active call to action.

Then comes the broken English phrase " baby you sweet like Fanta, Fanta".

Orange soda does not come directly to mind. I am taken into my addictively enticing Disney World. I am left wondering if Orange oda memories somehow ease stresses. My mind sees little Baby Dumbo being ripped away from his mother then taught to balance on a circus balloon, made up as a circus clown.

Then my mind moves to Micky mouse in Fantasia-- conjuring up sweet magic of the Sorcerers apprentice.

The word Yanga jumps out in the song 'Calm down". According to sources, Yanga means fronting- being honest with feelings. Whatever Yanga is, I am transported into a Jenga game--where blocks are stacked in a world of breathless sexual tensions and release . I hear "Get down" and "my hips make you cry" . They are suggestive phrases. I blushed when I first heard the broken English reveal such raw animal emotions.

Somehow, between the 'no no no no. oh oh oh oh, lo lo lo lo and whoa whoa whoas,' I get the message: 'This feels great but I am not ready to commit.'

The song makes me realize that cascades of thoughts allow many deviations and errors, and still result in the same end. Biology works that way. Sometimes at least. Often errors can be ignored because they have no long-term effect in biology and Life .

I had Alexa play this song several times a day for months. I yearned to listen to this song at the strangest of times. When I had to get out of my head, that was going 200 miles an hour in a 120 zone, knowing that speeding held heavy penalties.

I have learned and relearned that taking things slowly makes the end product easier to attain, yet for the life of me, there is a part of me that fights going slow and carefully. I know I learn a piece of music much faster by mastering sections slowly and with clear precision.

I know that when I do physio exercises to repair ripped tendons, the slow approach removes the bodies subconscious reaction that resist pain and enhances healing.

When I need to study a detailed procedure, the process is eased off when I slowly deal with each small point of confusion at each small step of the way.

I gather information, think about it, arrange it then manipulate it to fit into what I consider is the ideal puzzle that I think it is a part of. Then I realize that life is not a puzzle that fits together. It is more like a pinball game where random vectors cause unexpected trajectories that result in chaos. that can form patterns.

I think of the poor deaf dumb and blind Tommy of the Who, the Pinball Wizard with no distractions.

Calm down reminds me to breath. Surprisingly, at that point another two songs enter into my subconscious. Big Mouth Billy Bass, the singing fish mounted but not frozen in time, plays " Don't worry be happy" in my mind and reminds me to go with the flow.

That fish makes me love Bobby McFerrin, who knows the power of the Pentatonic- the fifths that are part of mankind's unconscious awareness- and part of how we are made.

Then the song 'Three Little Birds' by Bob Marley and the Wailers moves into my mind, heart and gut. The Disney cartoon world tickles my fancy especially the line, "singing sweet songs, of melodies pure and true"

I have spent the year knowing that sometimes calming down helps . It lets other, more positive strategies enter into my consciousness.

When one door closes, it is time to find another. When it is not there, and you are a prisoner in some small isolation cell, like Steve McQueen who plays the daredevil Captain Virgil Hilts, the Cooler King, in the 1963 John Sturges film, the Great Escape, it is important to keep up internal mental strength, to try to escape in spite of impossible odds.

Trying to escape is addictive. I follow the Captain's lead and try tunneling out of a situation. Carefully, slowly and meticulously I get rid of the dirt in the way, I keep trying. The idea of escape becomes addictive. I know what it is that I want to feel. One day, the war will just end, the prison doors will open. I feel the heroes journey is my journey.

Great fighting War songs come to mind. 'The Bridge over the River Kwai' holds a whistling tune that moves me.

I revert to a Disney characters in Snow White and the seven dwarves and whistle while I work like many of the beasts in the movie.

Then I remember the song "Happy", by Pharrell Williams and just carry on.

There are some newer songs of 2024, that have not yet entered into my realm of consciousness. I know, when the time is right, songs that mean something to me will find me. I may not know the meaning of the words but have faith that whatever muse has moved the artist, will find a way to move into me. I am looking forward to continuing being amused.