The Soundtrack of Your Life

I'm not sure if many of you know what I'm actually up to these days, you know, to pay the bills not create them. I am a Home Theater Custom Sales Consultant at Stereoland in Eden Prairie, MN - which is a pretty sweet gig for me. For those who know me well, they know that I am somewhat of an aficionado of electronics, especially home theater stuff. In fact, we are nearly finished with changing our basement from a big empty space to a fabulous 2 bedroom, laundry room, bathroom, and large home theater with coffee bar. So the fact that I get to come to work every day and walk around a store in which there are speakers that are worth more than my car (seriously), and watch Yankees games on a 120" screen with theater seating and jaw dropping sound is a definite perk. But, alas, it is still a job, and I do have to do things that I'm not a huge fan of. For instance, I cannot wear jeans to work. C'mon man! We're selling speakers, not funeral plots! I also am pretty much stuck here all day on Tuesdays especially. Just me, all day, from 9:30am til after 8pm. Seriously - I have to leave notes on the door and lock up if I need to leave for any reason, even when nature calls. How embarassing is that? When that glorious moment arrives, instead of being able to select the latest issue of my favorite home theater magazine and head off for my mid morning session, I have to sit down and create a Word document stating that I'll be back in 30 mins (I hate being rushed). Annoyances aside, it is a pretty fun job now that I've gotten used to being here for over 50 hours a week.

One of the products that I particularly enjoy is called a Fireball-not the jawbreaker (although that sounds really good right now)- which is a digital music server (giant iPod basically) that can store tens of thousands of songs. When I first started here in February, I would just listen to whatever happened to be loaded on the machine, which was the standard stereo store selections - Norah Jones, John Mayer, Dave Matthews Band, tons of classical and jazz, and for some inexplicable and particularly naseating reason, Gloria Estefan (I guess she ditched the Miami Sound Machine). I used to enjoy some of these artists, but after a solid month of "Daughters", I was ready to toss the Fireball into the parking lot. Then it hit me - why don't I bring in my own music and add it to the mix? Since I am here the most of anyone by far, I should be able to dominate the music server, right? So I have begun to slowly but surely add some of my favorites to the system and listen to them all day.

You may be wondering why I told you that backstory... Well, it is to talk about music and its powerful grip on our memories. I love to ask the question of friends and those soon to be my friends, "What band would you choose to be the soundtrack of your life?" I've heard so many varied responses to this question, that I've begun to deduce that this question reveals a lot about the past of the responder. It isn't always true, but it has on occasion revealed a deeper view into a heart - the pain, the joy, the good times, and bad.

I have learned over the years that the only way to make sense of our lives is to view them as a story. Since our longest lasting memories are tied to emotion, our heart is actually the best keeper of our stories. Whether or not you agree with me, you do the same thing when you think back over your life... Not many people think about their life in terms of bullet points, or in chronological order of rountines and monotonous existence. Typically when we think back, our memories are tied to love, pain, success, embarassment, fear, joy, laughter, beauty, brokeness, breakthrough, risk, betrayal, adventure, breathless silence, punishment, ecstasy, and consequences. I'll take my memories a step further and say that these events are not only tied to emotion, but they carry with them music that brings me back.

All of this came to mind as I walked around the store today and a song came on that reminded me of one of my precious former students and their incredibly painful journey, but yet the redemption and joy that has been granted to them. I started to seek out songs that have a grip on my memories and will now lay a few of them at your feet.

Not in any sort of order at all!

ABBA, Dancing Queen - This song has swooped in and out of my life several times, but it began as a tape that I snagged out of my dad's "old music collection" that wasn't CHRISTIAN (GASP!)... I took that tape and popped it into my walkman and hopped on my John Deere lawnmower (after I had sniffed a little gasoline - hey, I was 12 man!) and fell in love with disco. So that became my brain-cell killing routine when it was time to mow the lawn, some gasoline scent on the end of my nose and ABBA turned up so loud that my ears rang for an hour after the lawn was cut.

Glass Tiger w/ Bryan Adams, Don't Forget me When I'm Gone -
"Don't forget me when I'm gone,
My heart would break.
I have loved you for so long,
It's all I can take."
I went to 3 different high schools, so leaving became pretty normal for me. But I always left behind someone, my Winnie Cooper, to whom I had never really come clean with my true feelings. One day, after leaving another school, I actually called up the local radio station and requested this song - thinking that maybe she would be listening. As I laid there listening to the cheesy keyboards wail, a tear trickled down my cheek as I realized that I would probably never see any of those old friends again, and worst of all, I could never tell her how I felt.

Eric Clapton, Wonderful Tonight - I absolutely love this song, but one memory stands out to me whenever I think of this... I was asked to be a groomsman in a wedding (1 of 13 times to date) and I was informed that I needed to dance with a bridesmaid during the reception. Now in my house, dancing was forbidden - which was fine with me. My parents had always told us stories about proms and the naughty things that happened there, so the whole dancing thing had sort of passed me by. So now I'm in college, and I need to learn how to slowdance. Well, the only guy I knew that could dance was a close college friend named James Philip Miller. So, we closed the door to my dorm room, turned on Wonderful Tonight, and shared my first dance. It was awkward and rigid, but a necessary evil that allowed me to blend in to the rest of the wedding party when the moment came.


Shane and Shane, It is Well - I've sung this classic hymn countless times in my traditional evangelical church upbringing, but it had never seared its notes into the lining of my heart until September 24, 2005 - the night before our farewell service at Bloomington Baptist Church. I was driving around Maple Grove having just enjoyed a fabulous cigar at Tobacco Grove while Ange was babysitting, and I began to question God about what had happened "to us". I felt angry, confused, frustrated, and victimized. "It was wrong - God how could you let it happen this way?" Then, my iPod began to feed a song that washed over me like warm rain...
"When peace like a river, attendeth my way, and sorrows like sea billows roll... Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul!" In that moment, I wept. I finally saw that the bitterness and anger had robbed me of being able to grieve. I wasn't able to cry because I was holding on to my rights so tightly. God just spoke to me in that moment, and for a little while at least, I had peace. The next day, after I shared some final words of challenge and thanks, I was able to lead the church in singing that same refrain (actually, it was my great friend Dan who led, as I was only able to sputter out a few lines as I gushed emotion). The memory of seeing the people that I love losing themselves in the musical worship of that song will bring a tear filled smile to my face until I pass on.

Shania Twain, From this Moment - I have always loved music, but there were times when I became "too cool" to sing. I think during some of my high school years and then during some of my time in college, I was the guy who stood there and didn't sing. The irony is that I love to sing! I'm always humming, whistling, teeth chattering out a beat, or just bobbing my head to my internal jukebox... But until this girl named Angela came into my life, I would never sing publicly - by myself or in a duet. "Special Music" was my sister's department, and I was more than happy to avoid that title for 20 plus years of my life (special music - to be honest, the first time I heard that title I thought that a mentally challenged individual was going to be singing a song). Now Angela and were a really good fit, right from the get go, first as friends then as spice (plural of spouse?)... But she sang all the time, and she loved country music, which is one of the things I hate most in this world, second only to the Red Sox. Well - she especially loved Shania Twain, which isn't REAL COUNTRY anyways, and there was this tune that became "our song" - it was a duet, between Brian White and Shania, called From this Moment. When we were in the car, Ange would sing the Shania part, and then INSIST that I sing the male part of the duet. I would fight and resist and pout and get grouchy and try everything in my arsenal to get her to quit asking - but she never would. So finally, I relented and joined her in the song. I secretly liked singing it because it was a real challenge for me to hit the high notes, but when I did Ange would say, "Whoa - babe, good job! You have an awesome voice...." which would have been great if she stopped there, but she didn't "... and it's wrong that you don't sing in church. WE ARE SINGING A DUET IN CHURCH AND THAT'S FINAL." Plus, she went on a missions trip to the Philippines for a month when we were dating, and every time I heard that song it made me think of her. And I heard it EVERYWHERE - even once while humbly using the facilities at a dirty Burger King at the Jersey Shore.


David Crowder Band, O Praise Him (All this for a King) - It is late spring 2003, and we have been meeting for several months in preparation for a grand endeavor, a group of 35 is travelling to London for a 2 week long missions trip. Money has been collected, tickets purchased, and vaccinations received - only one problem, we are leaving in three weeks and the entire purpose for the trip has fallen through! We have lost our lodging, our mission, our food, and my temper. It is a very good thing that I received the news in a public place - or else there could have been some real repurcussions for the messenger and the walls. I remember sitting down with Scotty, one of my go-to youth leaders, and dropping this bombshell on him. The look on his face was a weird mixture of anger and apathy. Not worry. Not fear. I was ready to weep and he seemed slightly peeved yet hopeful. At the next team meeting, I broke the news - but God had laid the story of Job on my heart that day, and so I challenged myself and the group to join Job in turning mourning into dancing. Weeping into worship. I put on a cd that I had just received, it was a raw, pre-release recording of the David Crowder Band song, O Praise Him. No one had ever heard it before, but it just felt like the right thing to do. I'll never ever forget what happened next - about halfway into the song, I looked back to see what the response was and my jaw dropped and my tears flowed. I saw this team of teens and adults worshipping God with all their hearts... Eyes were closed, many hands were raised in desperation and surrender, some were kneeling, others were laying on their faces. This was the moment that changed everything. God showed up - and gave us a life-changing trip and a team that was soldered together at the heart.

I could go on and on and on...

Green Bay 2005 with The Afters blaring, The Reason in the jungles of Roatan, Ironic with Tara and friends during college days, The Glory of Your Name sung at me constantly, My Glorious at the Good Friday Service with Cofield, Where It's At in the dorm with Varnish, Baby It's Cold Outside with Ange, We are the Champions at Yankee Stadium after the last out of the 1996 World Series, River of Tears (Clapton) with Woody(NY) as we chatted on rooftops, Great Lengths in the van to my dismay, Holy is the Lord with Jamie and Gretchen at One Day '03, Pray for Me as an anthem of separation and loss, Fix You as my heart beating declaration for the health of my wife...

What are your songs that conjure memories? I am a glutton for story and song - so please share them with us...