A Voice Like Starlight

by Liz Flaherty

Like most anyone else who is able to hear or feel its message, I like music. I was a teenager in the 1960s, therefore I claim a peculiar kind of ownership of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Crosby, Stills & Nash (and, to a lesser degree, Neil Young — he was an add-on), and eventually the Eagles. I didn’t care much for the Stones, though driving down the road bellowing Jumping Jack Flash at the top of my lungs and badly is something I’ve always liked doing.

I like Christmas music. I start playing it in the car in mid-October and don’t stop until the ball drops on New Year’s Eve. At church, even if the sermon doesn’t reach me, the music usually does. For a few shining moments during my children’s adolescent years, music gave us a common language. I didn’t like their rock and roll much, but sometimes I listened right, maybe with a mother’s heart, and heard what I should hear. But I guess I’m not really talking about the music there; I’m talking about hearing what my kids were trying to tell me.

Music is nice, but if I had to give it a number on a ten-scale of importance in my life, it would slip in there around five. Far more important than television and movies, but way behind books and sunsets. I would miss it if I couldn’t hear it anymore, but, you know, not that much. Like most writers, I have infinite esteem for the written word, and as one who tends to write short, I admire songwriters’ ability to condense entire thoughts into a few lines. But then, how hard can it be to write a couple of pages as opposed to a book?

The boyfriend, on the other hand, loves music. He plays the guitar and sings — the first time I ever saw him was at a school dance (although he didn’t see me; that came later) — and hears nuances in songs that I can’t even understand when he explains, much less hear with my own tin ear. He is not a man who cries, but I’ve seen tears slip from the corners of his eyes when he hears certain songs. Feels certain songs. He doesn’t like music videos because they tell the stories of the music differently than he hears them. Conversely, the videos give me a better understanding of what the songwriter and the artist are trying to say; they will make me like that which I previously did not.

We’ve gotten better about some things over the years. I’ve learned not to constantly interrupt him while he’s watching television, because he cares about what he’s watching. He’s learned not to badger me about books lying around because I love books. But we’ve never reached a communication point on music. He likes it loud; I want to barely hear it. He hears the lyrics instantly; I’m still saying “huh?” the fifth — make that the tenth — time I hear a song. He hears riffs and leads and chords; I hear that thing there in the middle somewhere. Like I said before, he feels the music. I don’t.

Except for sometimes.

I was at a program at my grandsons’ school. The fifth graders, including one little girl with a voice like starlight, sang a medley of patriotic songs to the veterans in the audience. Their fathers, grandfathers, and uncles. I didn’t know I was crying until my daughter’s friend Georgina said, “Oh, God, stop,” and gave me the tissue she wasn’t using.

And then there are the times I try to sing Puff, the Magic Dragon. At Peter, Paul, and Mary concerts, everyone sings along with “Puff.” Except me. And probably a few other moms of grown children who weep not for Puff but for the children we will always miss no matter how much we like the adults they became.

Or when we sing Amazing Grace in church. We get to the last verse, the one everyone sings loud and joyous, and my throat clogs up.

However, I flip the knobs of my car radio constantly, much like my husband does the TV remote. I’m looking for music I like, and it’s hard to find. When I do find something, it’s way too often accompanied by DJs who laugh too much and too loud. This is one of the reasons music is only a five on my importance scale.

Except...

The other night, I was folding clothes in the laundry room when I heard a song I like being played on television. I went in to listen, then sat down to watch the video. Thirty seconds later, I was in tears, mopping my eyes on the white sock in my hand. In less than three minutes, with words that only covered a few pages, the songwriter and the performing artist had combined forces to share a story it would take me an entire book to tell.

No, I don’t know how hard it is to write a couple of pages as compared to writing a book. And yes, I still have a tin ear and a voice bad enough to make the shower run the other way. However, I’ve learned to find music in strange places: conversations with adolescent children, the laughter of toddlers in a room (the post office lobby) that is a cacophony of adult voices, a turn of phrase in a book that walks easily through my mind all day.

A five. Did I say music was a five? Am I crazy? It’s at least an eight. And moving up.

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