What are we without music?

Abigail Menezes.

No: 3752.

Lovers wouldn't have songs to romance to. There would be no such thing as "our song." Sinatra couldn't fly to the moon. Elvis couldn't complain about people stepping on his blue suede shoes. Tony Bennett would have to write a letter about how he left his heart in San Francisco. Willie might go on the road again, but without a guitar. And Ray Charles would look pretty strange up on stage without a piano telling us that Georgia is on his mind.

Then when the wedding day arrived, what would the bride march down the aisle to? A poem? Silence? Applause? And when the happy couple marched out of the church together, would they do it to the bark of neighborhood dogs, or perhaps all the wedding guests talking at once? At the reception, what would they dance to? The Funky Chicken just isn't the same without music. Since rhythm is part of music, no drums would even be allowed. At Christmas time there would be no Christmas carols. No rousing gospel music at Easter, no hymns in church.

There wouldn’t be things like clubs or pubs to hang out in. There would be no bathroom singers. When travelling by air you wouldn’t have soothing sounds to calm you off your fright of heights.
When a baby arrives, do we lull her to sleep with a reading from Shakespeare or perhaps random readings from the dictionary or encyclopedia? Could we bore her to sleep with words? We all know music always does the trick. Nursery rhymes would have to be chanted or recited instead of sung. School music programs would of course be non-existent, as would school choirs and orchestras and bands. When those birthdays roll around, we would have to all recite together in a monotone "happy birthday to you."

You’d never be able to sing “I got sun shine on a cloudy day! When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May!” What’s in a song? Everything! We wouldn’t have Julie Andrews running across the hill singing that very popular hit “The sound of Music”. There wouldn’t be “Singing in the rain”, No “Fidller on the roof” and no “Chitty Chitty bang bang”.

When talking about classical Indian music, what would we be without Asha Bhosle, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Balamurali Krishna and of course the latest A.R. Rahman? For that matter we wouldn’t even have a national anthem. And when duty calls, what would soldiers march to? What would take the place of music in parades, since there would be no marching bands? There would be no patriotic songs - just speeches. We wouldn’t even have the radio, that most of us are so addicted to whilst commuting. No ipods, no mp3 playyers. Nothing. Our lives would be extremely boring.

Without music there wouldn’t be the “Music biz” and we’d revolve our lives around watching television dramas. At some point, we all need music be it classical, instrumental or pop. I don't know about you, but I've had it up to here just thinking about it. I'm heading for the piano now to celebrate the fact that our Creator gave us the wonderful and inspiring and uplifting gift of music that we all take for granted and fail to admire.