Music to Soothe a Savage Beast

There is a very popular phrase/quote that says, “Music soothes the savage beast.” There are many variations of this idiom, but a lot of people use it and probably do not know that they are misquoting the originator of the saying. I have always believed it to be that music has the ability to calm down even the most savage of the human beasts among us. Music lovers like me have used it or heard this quote often.

Through a little research I discovered that the original quote was first coined by William Congreve who was a poet of the restoration period and an English playwright. The actual quote was “Musick has Charms to sooth a savage BREAST, to soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.” This first hit the scene in 1967 as part of a play titled “The Mourning Bride”. The first thing that jumped out to me was that the quote originally was Breast versus Beast. The meaning is likely interpreted as chest or heart which meant feelings, emotions and heart back when it was first penned.

So, I (and many others) have been using it to say something quite different for many years apparently. Either way, I think the quote is still powerful no matter which way it is being used. Music is one of the best ways to calm heartache, pain and emotions. Music has a “power” and an ability to make people smile and I believe, to change the world. Who knows, it may even calm a wild beast or three!

I am a deep believer in the power of music. I always have the radio on in the house, in the car, at work, in the garage, and in the gym. Anywhere I go I’m looking for other music people, they tend to be the fun ones. I love going to shows. I love collecting records, CDs, mp3’s, tapes, etc. My personal collection is somewhere over 25,000. I know, I may have a problem. I often refer to it as “glorious fortunes of a misspent youth.”

I have bought music weekly (in some form) since the first record I bought back in the 1960’s. You could go to almost any store and buy 45’s that had an A side and a B side. When I got my paper route, I graduated up to either multiple 45’s or long players (LPs). I would take them home, carefully slice the cellophane open, slide the record in its paper jacket out and place it on my turntable and give it a spin. I loved it!

I can’t play music; I can’t read music; and if you know me at all you know that I can’t sing either but that has not stopped me from enjoying it my whole life. My dad was a big music fan, and I would play his records to death. He had a wide range of musical taste and that exposed me to many different kinds of music. Growing up in Akron, we could catch WMMS, the Buzzard, out of Cleveland, Ohio which was rated the country’s #1 rock station (according to Rolling Stone magazine) ten years in a row in the 1970s and 1980s. You could hear live music somewhere every night of the week and the weekends were always full of shows.

Many of my friends also were big into music and we could sit and talk about it forever. This was before the internet and computers so there was always a search going on for the coolest new bands and word of mouth was the way it happened for us. Juke boxes were our Spotify.

One of the cool things I remember growing up as a teenager was going over to someone’s house to hang out. Then sitting down and going through their record collection was a serious bonding exercise. A lot of guys talked sports, cars, girls, parties (me too), but what I really liked to do was sit down and go through their records. That was the quickest way to know if I had anything in common with them. It also showed me how deep they were into it. I could talk hours about music. Some guys could tell you the best baseball players and the best teams ever, but I could tell you who the best guitar players were and who the best frontmen were. I could talk music history and which albums were better than the others in their catalog. I know in the larger scheme of things that this information is not all that important but for this tire builder’s kid from Akron, it was a big deal.

When I first starting dating, I would show up to a young lady’s home with a dozen records stuffed under my arm to play because, well you know, you can never be too careful! Nothing worse than getting stuck with a cruddy album collection of bubble gum music, right!?

When I started dating Michelle, I got invited over one evening to meet her parents and family and have dinner. Once all that had been completed, she asked me if I would like to go and listen to some records. Well, that was the quickest conversation we ever had. “Absolutely, I would love to!” So, we head into their living room, and I see the stereo system and a stack of records neatly leaning against the wall. I love a neat and tidy record room, so things are headed in the right direction. I can’t stand records being out of their jackets and getting all dusty and fingerprinty (I told you I needed help!). So, I quickly sit down next to the records and start flipping through the stack. This is where things take a quick turn. I’m looking through and I see Cat Stevens, Dan Fogelberg, The Eagles, Chicago, America, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Elton John, Doobie Brothers, and several others in the same genre. What I don’t see is the hard rock and metal albums that are in my collection. Oh boy. What to do Rut machine? I ask something like “Is this all of them?” I am told that indeed that was the complete collection and was asked what I thought. It is never a good idea to lie to someone right off the bat, so I tried real hard not to and replied, “I’m sure you enjoy them very much!”

Today’s blog will be about how music played a huge part in our budding relationship and how it may have soothed a savage beast (and metal head), ME!

But First…A Joke:

One day, I hear a knock at the door. An older man is standing on the front porch. “I’m so sorry,” the visitor says, “but I think I’ve run over your cat. I’d like to replace him.” “Okay, I say, “but how good are you at catching mice?”

Bonus Dad Joke:

I was busy at work one day and the phone rings. “This is the school calling about your son, Bubba, a woman said. “He’s been caught telling wild lies.” “Indeed!”, I say, “I don’t have a son.”

A Verse to Contemplate:

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior - Habakkuk 3: 17-18

Have I Told You This One?

As a teenager growing up and trying to be tough and cool you couldn’t be caught liking music on the softer side. If it was fast and loud, we were on to it. The music of the 70’s and 80’s was such a great time to be coming of age. Fifty years later I can still hear a certain record and immediately I am transported back to those days.

Michelle and I sat down and listened to all of her records. Initially I had to act like I enjoyed her music, but it wasn’t what I was into then. After some time, I actually started to like her music and it did seem to soothe me down some. It was always calm and soothing in her house. The lights were frequently down, the TV was on low, the music was not blaring, and you could still smell dinner that had been over a few hours ago. The house I grew up in was completely different. It looked and sounded like the circus was in town and hanging out at my house. Every TV was on, every stereo was cranking, all the lights were on. You get the idea. It was a nice respite to go over to her house and see how the other half lived. Don’t tell anyone but I also started becoming familiar with her records and taste in music.

She went to shows with me, mostly up in Cleveland, and actually started to dig some of my music as well. We went to see bands like AC/DC, Aerosmith, Kiss, Queen, Nazareth, Cheap Trick, Foghat, and more of that ilk. She always looked smoking in the latest concert shirt. We had a lot of fun and tried to give and take when it came to music. She knew it was important to me and she put up with my obsessions. Think women and shoes as a close comparison to me and albums.

As our relationship grew, we decided we need a song to be “our song.” We decided on “Just You and Me” by Chicago because I knew “we” would never agree on “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath (smirk). The lyrics to You and Me seemed to fit our relationship pretty good and it always made us think of each other especially of those early days sitting listening to records in her music room.

When she passed away in 2021, I had to go through her things and one of things she had in her car was a few CDs. She never seemed to need 25,000 like me. She had Dan Fogelberg, Jackson Browne, and Elton John CDs in her car. Those are my favorite CDs now because I can put them on and picture her enjoying the music even if she wasn’t head banging. I can hear her singing the lyrics and laughing at me for singing them wrong.

I was coming home yesterday from the grocery store and a Dan Fogelberg song came on the radio. The DJ was describing the history of the song and what it meant to him. How it was made, who played on it, how it went on to be a hit and how great it was for him to have been a part of it. As I listened, I was thrust back to her house on Dorsett Avenue, wrapped in that Afghan rug that everyone had back in those days, looking at her smile as I put my arm around her before her dad saw me do it. I remember her asking me if I liked that particular song “There’s a Place in the World for a Gambler” and I lied and said that I did. It turns out that after all these years I wasn’t lying. That song meant the world to me yesterday because I felt like she was near me.

I was missing her BIG lately and I went through some of things that I have saved over the years that she gave to me. I found an anniversary card from our last one that we got to celebrate together. She wrote a quick note on it that said, “Just You and Me, Happy and Free after all these years.” I miss her so much.

Music does in fact soothe this savage beast and it also impacts my heart (breast) and gives me something only death can erase and that is our memories. My view of heaven includes listening to the best music you have ever heard for all of eternity. Sitting there with all of those that you love with nothing else to do than to nod my head to the beat and look at all the beauty around me.

That would make a good song now wouldn’t it.

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, When I am reminded of the power You supply me with, I stand strong. You give me every tool I need to overcome my fears and to live for You. Thank You for allowing me to draw from Your strength.

Book Recommendation:

When There Are No Easy Answers - Thinking Differently About God, Suffering, and Evil by John S. Feinberg (2016)

Music Recommendation:

Souvenirs by Dan Fogelberg (1974)