I'm On Drugs

Every time I listen to "Bohemian Rhapsody" by the British band Queen it gives me goosebumps. I will never grow tired of hearing it. It is such a complex, multifaceted, and operatic song that it will be remembered as one of the greatest songs ever. I bet you have a similar story or relationship with a different song or who knows; maybe we share the same tastes.

Much research has been done over the years about how music connects with our brain, wondering how music impacts us in a deeply emotional way. As U2’s song "The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)" rightly says, “(I’ve got) music so I can exaggerate my pain, and give it a name.”

One of the most astonishing aspects of music is how by listening to a particular song, it can bring back precise moments of our life. Happy or sad, it doesn’t matter. Those memories just come to our mind instantly when listening to a song. That’s the power of music. You are hearing something nice and being transported to the first time you fell in love or a holiday trip with your family and suddenly the song changes and you are being transported to a different moment of your life.

Not only that: we are able to relate to people we have never met or seen. Just by going through the lyrics of the most well-known songs of all time, we can discover how artists have gone through similar experiences as us in life and that’s one of the main reasons why we love those songs. It feels really good to share—anonymously—your life experiences.

However, music also serves just as a simple form of entertainment. My tedious and dull everyday tasks are always accompanied by the music playing in the background and I can assure you that I am not the only one. It is always easy to do something when you are active and lively because that’s what music is also for. It invigorates and stimulates you.

Music is like a drug. A healthy one.

“Music makes me forget my real situation. It transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of music, I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do not understand, to have powers which I cannot have. Music seems to me to act like yawning or laughter; I have no desire to sleep, but I yawn when I see others yawn; with no reason to laugh, I laugh when I hear others laugh. And music transports me immediately into the condition of soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time.”

― Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata