sometimes a song stops being a song and becomes something else

unmoored and dissolved

I think I understand now why Jesus will come with a trumpet on the day of the rapture. Maybe music is the only bridge strong enough to pass us through this life to the next. Maybe it’s the only language creation still understands. The only sound strong enough to lift a soul out of the body without breaking it.

The shawshank redemption, 1994

And if you've ever listened to Hozier, maybe you've already come close.

See, there’s something about Hozier’s music. Before his voice even arrives, something inside you moves, like it’s been called by name. You feel the air around you shift. You don’t always know it’s happening, but you brace yourself anyway like a Williams at Wimbledon. You brace because something sacred is about to pass through you. And when he hums, God, when Hozier hums, it’s like your skin remembers being spirit. You surrender. If Hozier tells you about love, it doesn’t matter if you’ve ever been there. You must believe. You must ache like someone who’s lost it.

When my time comes around
Lay me gently in the cold, dark earth
No grave can hold my body down
I'll crawl home to her
— Work Song

Of course, music isn’t only about the artist. No, it’s the cellist, the woman chafing away at the violin, the lithe fingers cascading across piano keys, the drummer marking time with aching precision. It’s all of them, and more. It's the choir of soul, strings, skin. I don’t know how they don’t lose themselves. And I don’t mean the kind of lost that sways to rhythm. I mean, gone. Unmoored and dissolved.

I imagine myself as a pianist at a concert like Hozier’s. At first, I’d be composed, maybe even graceful. But by the end, I’d be close to convulsing. A gasm exploding within, like something ancient has passed through and left the door open. Because sometimes, a song stops being a song and becomes something else.

(this is also what I imagine a hauntingly good song should do to you.)

I must admit I get jealous of people who go to concerts, though. The girls in spaghetti straps, glittered eyelids, hands sticky with plastic cups, hearts clutched in obsession. Strangers bound together in anticipation. I envy them, but I’m also afraid to attend one. Afraid that once the music starts, and more terrifying, once it stops, I won’t know how to return to myself. What if the music ends and I can’t find my foot? What if I’m unanchored in ways I can’t explain? What if I’m left sitting on the floor, throat raw from screaming, eyes bloodshot, questioning everything!

What is my gift?
Who even am I?

Even as I type this, I realize maybe that’s exactly the purpose. To attend one concert that’ll throw you off completely. What else should music be if not a spiritual exorcism? So imagine, just imagine, belting out lyrics with the one who wrote them. Screaming the lyrics of the song that have torn you apart a million times. Whatever it is that happens in those moments is what I may define as salvation.

So yes, now I understand why Jesus won’t come silently but with a trumpet. Because only music has ever known how to break us open so gently. Only music has ever known how to gather the soul without wounding it. If there’s a stairway to heaven, it’s made of melodies.

And if I am ever to be lifted, I am glad it’s not by the wings of fire or fawn.
Let it be by music.

P.S: I might or might not have been listening to Shrike when I wrote this piece. Also, this marvellous fellowship with Ed Sheeran might or might not have been my muse.