If you haven’t noticed, it’s getting pretty stressful around here. Exams, projects, papers… You name it, some professor’s assigned it. But last Tuesday, Walk the Moon was playing at Mojo’s, and I wasn’t about to let the end-of-semester tornado stop me from going. You see, I saw the Cincinnati band when they opened for Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. here in March, and they completely blew me away. So naturally, I had to catch them when they headlined their own Columbia show.
Despite what the mounds of untouched homework sitting on my desk might have told you, going to a concert was probably the best thing I could have done that night. The show was the perfect remedy — an idyllic bubble of music fending off the bullets of stress veering in from every direction — and a much-needed reminder that there are plenty of things in life that don’t suck. Sure, the world was still filled with obligations and restrictions, but not in that moment. There was only music.
_“We learned more from a three-minute record, baby, than we ever learned in school.” —Bruce Springsteen._
People occasionally ask me (Read, “A person once asked me…”) why my column is called How to Dance Real Slow. The title comes from a lyric in Don McLean’s “American Pie”: “Now do you believe in rock and roll? Can music save your mortal soul? And can you teach me how to dance real slow?” One reason I picked this line is because I thought it was kind of cool to have a “how-to” column that, rather than dishing out relationship advice, took a look at the role music plays in our lives. But let’s be real, regardless of any success my column might have had making the reader(s) look at music in a different way, the idea of me teaching someone to dance (even symbolically) is equivalent to Rihanna teaching a class in subtlety. I can’t dance. I don’t have the answers. Save one, that is: Yes. I believe in rock and roll, and music _can_ save my mortal soul. For example…
Music saves your mortal soul when you’re wandering around campus during a blizzard and yelling songs at the top of your lungs with your best friend. Or throwing impromptu _Watch the Throne_ dance parties at 3 a.m. with your best friend. Or driving late at night and praying that up-beat iPod selections will succeed where caffeine has failed … with your best friend.
Whoa, guys — mid-column eureka moment here. Maybe my brain is just in over-analytical paper-writing mode, but it seems to me there’s a bit of a theme there. If I’m not mistaken, my best friend was present for all those magical musical memories. And it just so happens that now is the perfect time to throw some love to my best friend. See, said best friend just happens to be MOVE Editor Joel Berntsen. He’s leaving at semester to pursue his Troy-and-Abed-fueled dream of attending community college for a semester (#sixseasonsandamovie). And in his absence, I’m gonna be stepping in as editor to try to continue the stellar work he and his predecessors have done with MOVE Magazine. (That’s right, guys: The only requirement for obtaining an editorial position at The Maneater is becoming best friends with the incumbent.*)
*_Not really. Please don’t fire me, Travis._
I guess what my rambling self is trying to get at is some sort of proper send-off. So thank you, Joel. Thanks for being the headphones to my CD player when I need it, for punching me whenever I make horrendous puns and for giving me that Vampire Weekend CD that one time. I might not know how to dance real slow (You put your right foot in. You put your right foot out … No, that’s not it.), but I can certainly attest that it takes two to tango. In other, less-cliché-but-more-chocolatey words, music is kind of like the opposite of an ice cream cone: The more you share it, the better it gets.
And as I withdraw from this pulpit and advance to bigger, more grown-uppy things, Columnist Me would like to leave you with one final string of 3 a.m. wisdom pearls.
Music is your friend. After all, they don’t call them ear “buds” for nothing.
(I’m gonna get punched for that one.)
