Tag Archives: Tedeschi Trucks Band

My Musical Epiphany

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epiphany [ih-pif-uh-nee] a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience

I could call the conversation in my head in early March a couple of years ago an epiphany. (More on that internal dialogue in a minute….) . In fact, I do call it “My Musical Epiphany.”
The experience and the end result of it were very different from “Epiphany #1.”
This time the experience itself was solitary. It was on a long walk alongside Sinking Creek at Echo Bluff State Park early on a Sunday morning on the last day of an awesome roadtrip. (Our first trip to the Ryman; TTB in concert; found a diner that we loved; discovered and explored Echo Bluff S.P.; just the two of us with no cell service, a fireplace and balcony with a view…and more.)

This time the epiphany didn’t result in me quitting a job and moving cross country like Epiphany #1….but there was a bit of a lifestyle change.
On that fateful stroll in early 2017 I decided that if a show that I wanted to see was playing within 4 hours of me that I’d buy tickets. (On occasions I have exceeded the 240 minute “cap”…)
What happened next is referred to as “Ticket Buying Thursday” in my journal. That afternoon I bought tickets to: Dawes at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa; Joe Jackson at the Uptown Theater in KC; Tom Petty (with Joe Walsh opening) in Little Rock; and The Wheels of Soul Tour (Tedeschi Trucks Band, with Hot Tuna and the Wood Brothers opening) at The Amp in Rogers.
I have seen more shows in the last two years that I did back in the 80’s in Portland…and I saw LOTS of shows “back in the day.”

The Conversation?

Leon Russell.
Roy Orbison.
Death and Dying.
Life and Living.

1. Leon.
Here’s an excerpt of my FB status on 11/13/16:
“As we got in the car to head home from downtown after a stroll thru downtown to walk off breakfast, I heard a teaser on NPR of this song…and I reacted when they cut if off: “I love that song…don’t tease me!!” But I didn’t hear the awful news.
Then we get home and I learn that one of my heroes has died. This hurts.
He was scheduled to be the opening act for the Tedeschi Trucks Band at the first show I’ll ever see at the Ryman. That night next March in Nashville will be bitter sweet.”
{The song I linked to was “A song for you” Goosebumps.}
I get teary every time I think about that November morning.

2. Roy.
In a piece I wrote on here:
“For some reason that I don’t remember, I did NOT go see Roy Orbison at the Schnitzel on October 22, 1998. Roy had made this fantastic come-back. He had dubbed himself “Lefty Wilbury” in the super group The Traveling Wilbury’s. Roy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame in 1987. Lefty Wilbury was quoted as saying “It’s very nice to be wanted again, but I still can’t quite believe it.”
I couldn’t believe it when his gig at The Schnitz ended up being one of his last shows. He was dead 40 some days after he left PDX. The man with the magical voice was dead at 52.
The lesson I learned from that: YOLO.”

3. Death and Dying.
We’re all gonna die.
Period.

4. Life and Living.
Life is for Living.
Period.

Lessons.
I learned the very same thing from My Musical Epiphany as I did from Epiphany #1.
I have to keep re-learning that lesson all the time….

Life is precious. Enjoy every minute you have and enjoy every bite of every sandwich. Tell the people who you love that you love them. And be. Be kind. Be nice.

Just Be.

You are what you recommend…

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“You are what you listen to…” appears in the title of 3 of my blog posts.
Assuming there is some validity to those 6 words, what you recommend REALLY must say something!!

The other day I mailed a flash drive to the first person who became a friend after moving to Orygun in 1976. Kevin and I have been through a lot together. Lots of good times. Lots of stories. My favorite is probably the road trip we took in May, 1980, when I attended his 10 year high school reunion….but the story of that trip, and of the big guy who wanted to kick my ass ass at the reunion shindig, are for another day.

Kevin and I don’t talk nearly as often as we should. When we talked six days ago, music was the only subject of the 17 minutes. I promised to send him something. There was a note in the envelope a couple of days later, and earlier today I sent him an e-mail.
-=-=-=–

hey kevin,

I’ve always been a fan of “under promise and over deliver.”
I promised you a flash drive with 10 albums and the one I mailed has 30….and about ¾ of storage is still available. (that’s pretty crazy….i remember the IBM XT with a 10 meg hardrive.)

here are the ten i’d leave on it if someone held my feet to the fire and forced me to strip off twenty.
they are in alpha order, based on the title of the album.

1. “Acoustic at the Ryman” by Band of Horses. I love this band. saw them at roots&blues&bbq in columbia in 2017. (already got my ticket for this year’s festival…sept 28-30.) hope to see band of horses in a small venue near me in 2018…

2. “All your favorite bands” saw Dawes twice in 2017. the two best shows I saw all year. (cains ballroom in tulsa and the madrid in kc.) small venues. “evening with” shows. 2 sets. awesome front man. I have a man crush on taylor goldsmith. my blog is named after the first cut of this album.

3. “American band” saw Drive-by Truckers friday jan. 26 at the truman in KC. they’re on the wheel of soul tour with the best band on the planet, tedeschi trucks. seeing 3 shows of the tour in a 4 day period. thurs, 7/26 at the fabulous fox in STL. sat and sunday, 28th and 29th at Red Rocks. if I had to pick 10 songs from the flash drive it would be “what it means.” the song would probably make the top 3 songs from these 30 albums. POWERFUL song.

4. “Battle born” by the Killers. brandon flowers doesn’t like the album. that puzzles me. it is my favorite Killers album, and I have 5 of them. i’ve had several cuts “on repeat.” give deadlines and commitments, heart of a girl and from here on out a listen.

5. “Folk Hop ‘n Roll” by Judah and the Lion.  I had never listened to this band until my niece asked if we’d meet them at the show at The Pageant in STL on 3/24. I said i’d get back to her. easy decision after hearing just the first song….love the lyrics to it. my friend david baker would say “more banjo!!!”….and this dude can pick it!

6. “Men amongst mountains” by The Revivalists. this band is on my short list of shows that I want to see in 2018….ideally in some place like cains in tulsa. or a small venue in orygun the first 2 weeks of september.

7. “Old forests.” Jeanette calls this her “favorite young band.” my friend joe manlove says “mumford and sons have nothing on these guys.” National Park Radio is good stuff.

8. “Only by the night” by Kings of Leon. if I could only have one KOL album, it would be this one. one of my “first time tunes” is on this album. I wrote about “use somebody” in my blog. love this song. be sure to listen to alum cranked to 11….play it LOUD!

9. “Revelator” by Tedeschi Trucks Band. this is the best band on the planet. (or maybe it’s Santana….shelly and I banter about it.) we are seeing TBT three times in 4 days in late July. if shelly doesn’t get to hear “Midnight in Harlem” live in 2018….she and I will be both disappointed.
hear it once: happy. hear it twice: thrilled. hear it at all three shows: ecstatic. stay tuned.

10. “The Nashville Sound” by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit.
maybe it’s because i’m gonna have a “zero birthday” in september, but since I heard it the first time I have been calling “If we were vampires” the saddest love song ever. this one is a no brainer for the 2018 desert island disk list.

there are multiple albums on here from several artists who made this Top 10 list: Dawes, Drive-by Truckers, Jason Isbell, Kings of Leon and National Park Radio.

there’s a pair each from couple of Missouri bands: Rainmakers and Bottle Rockets.

the others are a mix: people i’ve seen fairly recently, people on my bucket list. there’s a band that has never toured as a band. there is one from my all time favorite singer songwriter.

give me a call sometime to talk about the music on this flash drive…or about the past…or the present…or the future.

call me sometime.

love you Kevin.

steve

You are what you listen to, but I am NOT OCD….

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…I am however a HUGE fan of the RPT button.

A quick scan of my 2017 journal found over 30 instances of a entry like this: “what it means was on repeat”
Or this one: “that earworm will not go away….and I’m liking it.”
More than 30 songs “on repeat” in 2017. Several of them probably had Shelly cringing.

I like to see bands live multiple times too. There are several that I’d see back-to-back-to-back if the opportunity should present itself. Some of them are on the list of 6 bands that 1 saw multiple times in 2017.

I’m a lyrics guy. At least 2 songs from each of the 6 made the 2017 RPT list. Bands listed alphabtically.  Line or two of lyric from the song that was On Repeat.

Dawes
“Quit taking the jobs that rob you of your powers so you can buy more shit you don’t have time to use…” from Quitter.
“Things happen, that’s all they ever do…” from “Things happen.”

Drive by Truckers
“But don’t look to me for answers, Cause I don’t know what it means…” from “What it means.”
“When he reached the gates of heaven he didn’t understand…” from “Two daughters and a beautiful wife.”
The true story behind this song is so very, very sad.

Jason Isbell
“It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever, Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone…” from “If we were vampires.” (This is one sad love song.)
“If there’s two things that I hate, It’s having to cook and trying to date….” from “Codeine.”

Rainmakers
“If Heaven is guilt, no sex and no show, then I’m not sure if I really want to go…” from “Wages of sin.”
“Older than I used to be, younger than I’m gonna be…” from “Long gone long.”

Ryan Adams
“Come pick me up, Take me out, Fuck me up, Steal my records…” from “Come pick me up.”
“The lines on my face are like a map of my sins…” from “Trouble.”

Tedeschi Trucks
“I was running from the past, My heart was bleeding and it hurt my bones to laugh…” from “Midnight in Harlem.”
“You gotta feel the pain, you got to see the suffering, gotta hear the cause…” from “It’s so heavy.”
-=-=-
That’s just over a third of the songs that I had On Repeat this year.
4 other RPTs stand out for me.

Band of Horses is still on one of my bucket lists. That particular list is “bands to see with Shelly.”
Lyric: “But no one is ever gonna love you more than I do...”
-=-=-=
Father John Misty writes some of the strangest lyrics. This under 3 minute song has a great title and some doozies.
Title: Chateau Lobby #4 (In C for Two Virgins)
Lyric 1: “I wanna take you in the kitchen, Lift up your wedding dress someone was probably murdered in…”
Lyric 2: “You left a note in your perfect script, Stay as long as you want, I haven’t left your bed since…”
He also wrote one of my all time favorite songs: “When you’re smiling and astride me.”
-=-=-=
And then is this one from a guy that I’ve wanted to see for over 40 years.
“…All that we have is each other and that’s all that I’ll ever need…” from “Family” by Joe Walsh. He was the opening act for Tom Petty in Little Rock back in March.

I had several Petty songs on repeat in 2017. And lots of others on RPT since picking up his first album in 1976.
We had only been in Corvallis for a few months. Money was tight. There are LOTS of stories from that Bi-centennial year…another time.
That first album had a couple of RPT tunes…not just for me…for millions of people: “Breakdown” and “American Girl.”

The Petty tune that I listened to the most in 2017 is one that he only played live a few times. He wrote it soon after his Mom died.
“What about the broken ones?
What about the lonely ones?
Oh honey I’m having trouble letting you go…”

Yes indeed.
Tom Petty died almost 3 months ago, and it’s still troubling me.  I am having trouble letting him go.  Glad I was able to see him 5 times.  I was hoping for half a dozen.

Let there be music.
Let some of it be on Repeat.
Be. Just Be.

Gimme Something Good

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It’s been 43 days since June 27 and my last post to this blog. On August 1, 2017 I saw a great show by Ryan Adams at The Pageant in St. Louis. The first four lines of the 3rd song of the evening pretty much describes my state of mind since my 6/27/17 post:

“I can’t talk
My mind is so blank
So I’m going for a walk
I’ve got nothing left to say…”

OK.
That’s a Lie. My mind has not been blank. I’ve got lots to say….

During those 43 days there was a road trip. A good one. A very good one.
There were concerts. Very, very good ones. Santana; Shovels and Rope; Avett Brothers; Wood Brothers; Tedeschi Trucks Band; Ryan Adams. (All of them provided my journal with a list of Desert Island Disk lists….)
There were several rant-inducing events since 6/27/17:
(1) Someone broke into my car and stole my fishing tackle…which included lures that had moved with me to Orygun in 1976. Fuck Me!
(2) There was the invasion by Japanese Beetles….hungry, horny pests. Fuckers.
(3)There was a visit by the apartment’s Rent-a-Cop, followed up by an official “Notice of Noise Violation” by management! Come on…who listens to Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen on a late Friday afternoon without cranking it up?!? Fuck me Twice!

All of the above gave rise to quite a few posts on Facebook. At least 70 statuses, many of which included pictures.
And while I didn’t hit my journal’s daily target of 500 words during the 43 days, it was close.
Then there are the items that got added to the “stories” folder on my laptop.

There has been writing…my mind hasn’t been blank for the past month-and-a-half.
It has been cluttered with the crazy shit coming out of the nation’s capitol. I’ve generally avoided being overtly political in this space. But it’s been hard, especially with the blatant LIES, total incompetence, and authoritarian audacities coming from 45 and his cretinous cabinet.
As much as I’d like to go on a long political rant here and now, I’m going to resist the urge….
I will say this though: read “Giant of the Senate” by Al Franken.  This is from Page 373:  
-=-=-=
Also running through my head, and on repeat in the apartment and in the car, has been Jason Isbell’s latest album. One song in particular.
I have a Love/Hate relationship with “If we were vampires” from “The Nashville Sound.”
Especially with these six lines:

“It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever
Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone
Maybe we’ll get forty years together
But one day I’ll be gone or one day you’ll be gone

If we were vampires and death was a joke
We’d go out on the sidewalk and smoke…”
-=-=
I’ve been in love with 2 people in my life.
I was married to one of them for almost 40 years. We weren’t “in love” for a good portion of that time. That’s history. Lots of it foggy. I hope she is happy.

I live with the second person. She’s may partner on this journey. Shelly and I will be having our five-year “meet-aversary” in a couple of months.
We’re too old to expect 40 years together.
One day I’ll be gone or she’ll be gone.

Eight more lines from a song from Isbell’s latest album are closer to the truth than the four from above by Ryan Adams.
These are damned near dead on:

“I broke a promise to myself
Ride the Throttle til the wheels came off
Burn out like a Molotov
In the night sky
I broke a promise to myself
Made a couple to a brown eyed girl
Who rode with me through the mean ol’ world
Never Say Die..”

Very few of the people I ran with in my 20s would have given me a chance to have a lot of birthdays ending in zero. I have one in 13 months. It’s a wonder I made it to 30.
The throttle has been pushed to the floor a time or two. OK…maybe I am a little burned out. That’s for another day…

Both of my loves have been brown-eyed girls.
I’m sure there were some promises made.
Some were broken.
Some might be.
This one won’t be: Never say die. Resist the bull shit. Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.

I think I’ll go out on the balcony and smoke.
And then take a walk.
Be. Just Be.

Roadtrips: 2011 and 2017

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I’ve always loved a roadtrip.
I’ve been on more than my share.
There will be more.
I aim to move even farther to the lower right on the bell curve that tallies up road trips.

Our 2017 road trip is only a couple of days away.
I’m expecting to put over 3K on a rental car in a period of 14 days.
We’ll sleep in OK, NM, AZ, CO, and KS.
We’ll see concerts in Albuquerque (Santana) and at Red Rocks (The Avett Brothers).
Shelly will see the Grand Canyon for the first time.
I’ll see parts of Utah and Colorado that I’ve never seen before.
This roadtrip is a vacation for her and a getaway for me.
There will also be a reunion factor as my son is planning to meet us in Denver on 7/9/17. The last time I saw Joseph was 2 years ago. There are stories there….both past and to come. One of my favorites is The Epiphany.

I shudder to think how much I woulda spent on film and processing if I had taken this trip in 1980. (That summer’s first roadtrip took me from Corvallis to Green Bay for a high school reunion. Not mine. I took hundreds of shots on that trip. In the digital age, add a zero.)

-=-=-=-=-=-

This upcoming roadtrip is very different from the one I took 6 years ago.
That one back in 2011 was:
Shorter…at only 1,200 miles.
One-way…from New Tampa, FL to Reeds Spring, MO with short layovers in the Atlanta suburbs and at my folks place in the Leadbelt.
It too was a “getaway” but in a much different sense.
No live music in route.
No pictures.

Six years ago I was traveling alone in a packed car that I bought on eBay. Before I hit the road that last Tuesday of June, 2011, I had shipped about 25 boxes of books, albums, CDs, slides&pictures, and some household good to my sister’s place at Table Rock Lake.
I was down-sizing. Bigly.
I left behind a 3400 square foot house filled with furniture…and “stuff.” I moved only one piece from Tampa: the small rocking chair my parents bought for me when I was a toddler.

My marriage of 37 years had imploded a few months earlier. It was time for us to start new lives.
Before I drove away I wrote one page letters to Paula, Joseph & Caroline. (I re-read the letters every once in awhile. It’s a good thing to do.  I did it again yesterday.)
I didn’t know how long I’d live at my sister’s when I arrived on July the 5th. (After 3 months we couldn’t stand the sight of each other, so I moved to The Abbey…where Shelly and I are about to renew our lease.)
I had no idea how long I’d live in Missouri. I still don’t….

-=-=-=-

When we hit the road on 6/29/17, we’ll be traveling with a USB drive loaded with literally hundreds of hours of music.
Back in 2011, it was a shoe box full of CDs.

The majority of music we’ll listen to on the trip will be people I’ll be seeing in the second half of 2017 (Shelly will have to miss some of the shows):
Santana
Shovels and Rope
The Avett Brothers
Wood Brothers
Tedeschi Trucks Band
Ryan Adams
Jason Isbell
Father John Misty
The Rainmakers
Drive-by Truckers
Band of Horses
Bob Seger

When I left Tampa in 2011, I hadn’t seen live music in years. (No wonder I was not a happy camper….but there was a lot more to it than that!)

Six years has flown by. I have made lots of new friends.
The vast majority of them are music lovers.  Many are musicians.
I fell in love.
My life is good again. I hope yours is too, and that you are traveling the high road.

Be. Be kind. Just Be.

 

More DIDLing….

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DIDL: 2017-4 Chicago

The first time I saw Chicago in concert I was a PFC, stationed at Ft. Bragg. It was just after they had released their third album. Their count now is 31, including a bunch of double albums.

Our seats back in 1971 were up in the rafters and behind the band at about 10 o’clock in a 10,000+ seat building in Charlotte with gymnasium acoustics. That building is long gone….and so are some of the data points from that night. (It has been awhile. I was a tad toasted that night.)

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TBT redefined….

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The acronym usually means Throwback Thursday, but it might also be short for truth be told, today’s big thing or turn back time….

On 3/9/17 it had a different meaning for me: “Ticket Buying Thursday.”

I’ve never been much on making resolutions, but last weekend I decided that 2017 should be the year of LOTS of live music. I already had tickets for 5 more 2017 concerts, but that was not enough to be truly committed, so on my March 9th TBT I added 4 more shows in 4 different cities to this year’s calendar.

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Separation Anniversary Weekend

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If you’re a strict constructionist, the anniversary should be celebrated on March 6 each year. That’s the date from the calendar back in 2011.

I’ve chosen to celebrate the annual event on the first Sunday of March, i.e. a day rather a date.

And after this past weekend, which was one great roadtrip, I think I’ve decided that the first weekend of March should be designated “Separation Anniversary Weekend.”

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You are what you listen too….Part 2

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I’ve written about my “addiction” to music before.

I am prone to have a song, or an artist, “on repeat.” Looking back at my Facebook posts during 2016, I shared links to youtubes of 19 songs that I had listened to over-and-over-and-over-again during the year.

Some of them were by artists that I was going to see soon, or who I had seen recently. Some were songs that I have been listening to for years. Some were from my “desert island” artists: Jackson Browne, Dylan, The Boss, Neil Young, The Rainmakers. There was quite a bit of variety, but it always came back to lyrics.
-=-=-=
In addition to being compulsive about listening to music, I read a lot. Not books so much anymore. I subscribe to lots of magazines and probably spend too much time online reading a variety of things.

One of the best things I read during 2016 was a piece called “My life in six songs.”

Well, I’m not gonna even try that exercise….but if I could audit Natalie’s MTHP 200 Psychology of Music course I think it would be a blast!!

What I am gonna do is pick the six songs from my 2016 Facebook “on repeat” posts whose lyrics have been played the most in the apartment, in the car and in my head.
-=-=-=

It’s easy to pick the first of the six. Here’s what I wrote on July 18, a couple of weeks after I saw them at the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland on July 1: “I didn’t run to the city in 2011, but the first few lines describe how I was feeling back then: ‘…I was running from the past, My heart was bleeding, And it hurt my bones to laugh…’ ”

I continue to be mesmerized by the tune, whether I’m watching a video of Derek Trucks making the slide guitar sing and cry or listening to Susan Tedeschi belt it out.

We will be seeing them at The Ryman on March 2. It will be awesome….
-=-=-=

The second song has got to be this one by the Bottle Rockets. We saw them twice in 2016; the first time at a house concert on August 26.

I detest the stars&bars; I LOVE this song. “Heritage” my ass…..the word has four letters and it does start with an H….

“That good ol’ boy’s waving
The stars & bars
It’s a red, white & blue flag
But it ain’t ours

Wave that flag hoss, wave it high
Do you know what it means?
Do you know why?
Maybe being a Rebel ain’t no big deal
But if somebody owned your ass
How would you feel?”

-=-=-=-
The halfway point of my half dozen songs from 2016 is one whose lyrics baffle me a bit, but it’s a song that I can’t shake.

Here’s what I wrote at 10:31 pm the night of my birthday:
“What’s on your mind?”
I got two things on my mind right now:

1. Why can’t I get this song outta my head?
2. WTF did he find in the drawer??

-=-=-=-=
If I was in Dr. Wlodarczyk’s class, there is no doubt that one of my six songs would be by Jackson Browne. Hell….they might all be by him.

The one that I’m gonna pick for 2016 wasn’t even written by him…but this one has some lyrics that hit home during 2016…and in 2017 too!

“Ever since the world’s existed
There’s one thing that is certain
There are those who build walls
And those who open doors…”

And then there is this line: “There can be freedom only when nobody owns it…”

Enough said about politics in these United (?) States….

-=-=-=

My last two songs of 2016 are by a fellow who I hadn’t listened to much until a couple of months ago. Man-o-man have I been missing out. You have been too if you have never listened to Amos Lee.

I’m picking two songs of his with very, very different sentiments. This first one has one of the best break-up lines I’ve ever heard.

“If you feel a chill in the air
It’s my spirit hanging somewhere
and if you ever get scared
Look on the bright side
You got a new life…”

-=-=-=

I heard this last song for the first time 6 or 7 weeks ago. I’m sure that I have heard it 100 times since then. And I’m probably just getting started. The song starts like this:

“My heart is a flower
That blooms every hour
I believe in the power
Of love…”

I do believe in the power of love. And I love this line from “Flower”:
“Tomorrow’s coming and yesterday’s gone…”

-=-=-=

This “pick only six songs” is a tough assignment. I could easily have picked several other songs:

“Stay ahead of the Wolves” by Bob Walkenhorst and Jeff Porter. On 10/28 my FB status: “I needed to hear something like this 5 years ago….there were wolves everywhere I looked back then. Five years on, this is one of their many songs that play in my head often.”
Bob & Jeff played it the next night to a packed house at The Rock House. I tear up everytime I think of it…

On Valentine’s Day I posted a link to “Late to the party” by Kacey Musgraves. “…who needs a crowd when you’re happy at a party for two?”

The Strumbella’s released a catchy tune titled “Spirits” with this line: “I just want to be alive while I’m here…”

Nothing makes me feel more alive than music.

Be. Just BE.