Music Touches Your Life

You know music has touched your life when...

You walk into a gun department and you hear someone messing with the slide and that distinctive click and you instantly get the song "Bust My Guns" immediately comes to mind followed by "Cowboys from Hell... sparks fly from my double barrel 12 gauge... can't lock me in your cage... we're taking over this town..."

You are still in that same department and someone is talking about something that happened on patrol in another city/state and your mind goes back to "Body Count" and "Cop Killer".

You run into someone that you used to know but who you don't care to remember or associate with... they ask if your still with the loser you where with back in the day. And what pops in your head... "Get to Know" along with "When Doves Cry" and while your waiting for them to put a break in there rant so you can politely walk away... Your mind drifts back to the day of driving around with your man and his friend with the speakers blaring "Cowboys from Hell", "F*n Hostile", "Psycho Holiday" "Primal Concrete Sledge", "Cemetery Gates", "Walk", "Harvester of Sorrow", "Justice for All", "Nothing Else Matters", "Enter Sandman" "Sad But True" and many, many more...

So you half smile which is totally taken that you've been listening to the last 10 minutes or so of yak and you desperately hope you haven't agreed to something nasty.

But this triggers many other associations.

You can smell the the burgers from "Sandys", "Marlboro cigarettes" and you can smell the tang of both gun smoke and powder, you can feel the smooth action of the slide of your "Rugar" and the "Llama" and you feel your heart break. As you head to the restroom to try to a) get yourself under control and b) to hide the tears pricking your eyes... You can hear the debates that you listened to oh so long ago... About guns, movies, actors, music, controversy... As the tears run down your cheek you remember the precious days of going shooting and hunting killer man eating misc. trash left at the range. you remember the surprise of mouse, gerbil, and snake. You remember the scares, You remember learning to identify brass, and coming back to the strong stench of gun oil as you cleaned and serviced your weapon and then the days of movies, cheap food, and counting, weighing, measuring and packing rounds for the next outing.

It's only when your interrupted by the pleas of a little child to hurry up that you realize with the pain of a sucker punch how time has marched ruthlessly on and those days are gone...

You move on to another store and there's music playing in the back ground... The cashiers are talking about the old songs being played and you can't help but feel odd. You never considered yourself old. But you remember these songs... not only do you remeber them... You remember eagerly awaiting their release. Going to a concert and hearing them live. You remember the thrill and excitement of sneaking out with your friend to attend the concert. The makeup that was puttied on, the can and a half of Aqua Net, the pain of burns from the curling iron with the pull of the comb as your hair is forced into a dizzy height and wearing clothes that you normally wouldn't be allowed to touch let alone be dressed in. The nagging if you should get caught feeling and the acceptance of what would happen if you were... You experience an odd mixture of physical recoil and nausea as you remember the last time you were caught. Your mind can't stop playing the sounds, smells of that time. The crack and sting of the lash, the feeling of running water on your back only you smell the copper tang so you know it's not water that's running down, and the intense pain. Your brought out of this by the laughter of your friend and her Grandma. Remember the awed surprise that your friends Grandmother would stoop to helping you go to the concert.

You just can't help to smile and as you go on through the rest of your time out scents, sounds, sights, and talk just bring back clearly how much music has touched your life.