Music Is Dangerous

I have a few things to say about music and the power of music. I don't know why more intelligence agencies don't use it more. Going back to biblical days, they knew a thing or two. The singers and the musicians went forth first, into battle.

Music has a power that words alone cannot convey, and emotions can be provoked which would not be otherwise provoked. Music stirs emotions and causes people to listen more carefully to the words. Words that would sail over heads, are caught and held in music.

I swear to God, nations have been conquered and great leaders influenced and persuaded, by music alone. Not only can music spur people on to greater passion, music can break down the will. It will impassion an army to use greater force and to have more confidence, and it can cause fear and indecision in an otherwise self-sure army.

Israel used the entire choir and orchestra in their battles, and sent these people out first into warfare. I'd be interested in finding out about other ancient countries as well, because I only know since I've read the Old and New Testament a few times. At least you won't take the first hit if you're a musician today. But then the U.S. was always sending out their drummer boy, England too? I don't know, and maybe Scotland sent out the bagpipers. I know I've written a post about this already, a long time ago. I remember writing about this.

I think I have to switch locations because this place is filling up and they cut off internet when it does. Will finish in a minute.

In my life, as a non-pro sometime-singer, I have seen the power of music. I have seen how people who would otherwise pay me no attention, want to be instant friends after hearing me sing. This is sometimes annoying, but should be taken as a compliment I suppose, because when one is able to touch someone through a song, perhaps they feel association could have a further reward. I don't know.

Words stir emotions, but the combination of music and lyrics, I think, is most profound. I think the then-boy I first liked first took another look at me after hearing me sing, after knowing me for a couple of years. Suddenly, he was sending missives through a friend.

I moved, and the next one to take interest fully fell after hearing me at a high school talent show. I sang: "Love in any Language" by Sandi Patti. I will probably post those lyrics at the end of this post.

Going back to when I was younger, I was getting the pats on the head after I sang. I sang for a 4th grade talent show and a woman came up to me and said I sounded just like Madonna, at my age, and my mother thought it was more of an insult than a compliment. The song I sang was an Amy Grant song, about a woman gaining strength and fighting back. My mother thought it was a peculiar song for a little girl to sing, but I insisted. (later...found the title. It was "Love Will Find A Way").

Then I had another boyfriend who came to hear me sing at a fair, and although he was a rational person who didn't seem given to "signs", he told me that it was bizarre because when I began to sing, the rain that had been pouring all day, immediately quit and the sun came out, and then when my song ended, it started to rain again. It was true, that had happened, but he took this to have some kind of supernatural meaning.

I have seen people have physical reactions to music too, not just emotional, but physical.

And look at the altar calls, driven by the music, the outpouring. Not unlike concerts, where I think bands like U2 and Coldplay and others, actually change the world with their music, in significant ways. Before reading that Coldplay considered some of their songs to be "anthems" I could see the same thing, that they were rallying cries, not just songs.

Musicians don't go first into battles anymore, from what I can tell, but you still see a vestige in the National Anthem, being sung before games, spurring teams on. I used to sing the National Anthem before football games in high school, and I remember this one time that several guys came up to me and said after hearing me sing, they were so charged they knew they were going to win that night, and did. They spoke of the passion inspired and it was the first time I heard anyone say they fought better after hearing me sing. I know this is true for many musicians and singers.

Music has a tremendous power. It can save lives. Once, singing at a church thing for teenagers, a guy told me he heard my song and it made him decide to quit doing drugs. Heavy drugs. He said he saw himself in the song and it made him realize he was going the wrong direction.

I am just speaking about a few of my personal experiences and reactions I've heard, but I know it affects me just as much. I change my mind and make decisions, based on music sometimes, and then I try to clear my head and question whether I was thinking rationally or whether I am only being emotional and sentimental, swayed by the effects of music. Am I being practical? or spiritual? am I going by what I know and what I see before me, using judgement to assess risk and benefit, or am I taking leaps of faith by indescribeable intuition? When is a decision of faith better than a decision of logic?

So I wonder, going on to greater, less personal things, when has the course of history been changed by music? When has the enemy been broken down by a song, and come around to confess and to offer peace? Is there a heart so cold as to be absolutely immune to the power of music? How many times have people been spared because of music too. Jews, for example, spared because of their talent and playing for the Nazi's. I wonder if any of the Nazis ever began to look at the musician as more than talent, and a real person, and tried to help them and changed their views?

Some people use the power of music for good, and others, knowing the power of music and sometimes, the financial gain that comes from it, will do horrible things in order to steal that power. For some reason, Lord of the Rings comes to mind. Possession and the desire to possess for selfish reasons may corrupt something pure that could be used for the good of all. There are those who will try to take what is not theirs, and who will pass it off as their own work and inspiration.

I have personally seen different reactions. Some have wanted to be closer to me after discovering I might have a talent, others have wanted to steal it, and other have wanted to keep me under wraps out of jealousy. And, I think, I have also sometimes touched people, even those who would be my enemies, if even for a moment. I say this, thinking of two examples:

1. Bujanda and Garza. After hearing me sing, they didn't know what to do with themselves.

2. The Abbey Attorneys and conspirators. I fully believe I was being surveilled by the Abbey group, because not only were there unbelievable leaks, the one time they began to "break" and offered me anything--a settlement, was one time after I had spent the entire afternoon, pouring out my heart in improvisational song, in distress, and John Kaempf could not even look me in the eye the next day at the hearing. Christa was different and acted peculiarly. It was the reaction of those who would have listened in on a private outpouring of my grief over what they'd done to me and my pleas to God.

I realize I've no evidence, but my instincts and intuition are pretty strong, and I knew then, that some of them had heard me singing and they were, for once, feeling guilty. I'm not going to say it lasted, and that the tide was turned, because it wasn't, and they went back to their tricks. But there was one moment, when they were about to give up, and I could tell something was getting to them. I was offered $40,000. I didn't take it because it wasn't enough for everything I knew they'd already done to me. After I refused, they hardened their hearts and went back to their ways.

The first time the Abbey people, including Christa, heard me sing, I was still going to my Protestant church while researching Catholic dogma and considering conversion. I sang with a small group, where it was easy to pick out my voice. Two female voices and two or one male voice. I sang solos as well, and I noticed when there were new people observing because it was a fairly small group. They were checking me out, before they ever even got their police friends involved, to smear me. It just so happened, some of these same people were connected to others in the music industry.

All this to say, there is a lot to say about music and it's power. People fight better wars and make better peace because of it, and at the same time, wars are created over it's power. Music is bigger than the drug industry. Trust me.

Who knew religion and music could be such a deadly combination?

I like to think, the peace between Northern Ireland and the other half, is not just the result of peace talks, but concerts put on by U2. I also like to think I could bring Vladamir Putin to tears with a song dear to his heart and be welcomed in Russia. Or that Osama Bin Ladin would change his entire mission based on thoughts and songs I've written that cause him to realize all are equal in the sight of God, to life and liberty. That people in the U.S. or other countries who persecute and imprison others in less developed or enemy countries would not bend to cruelty if they heard a good song by a favorite singer, urging them to change of heart. I like to think musicians and singers are the movers and shakers of the world, and some of them know this and others haven't yet realized their full potential.

Here are the lyrics to Love in Any Language, but the think the first part, with the "I love you" in different languages is butchered. I tried to find the official lyrics but the spellings are all over the place.

Love In Any Language
Je t'aime
Te amo
Ya ti-bya lyu blyu
Ani o hev ot cha
I love you

The sounds are all as different
As the lands from which they came
And though the words are all unique
Our hearts are still the same

Love in any language
Straight from the heart
Pulls us all together
Never apart
And once we learn to speak it
All the world will hear
Love in any language
Fluently spoken here

We teach the young our differences
Yet look how we're the same
We love to laugh, to dream our dreams
We know the sting of pain

From Leningrad to Lexington
The farmer loves his land
And daddies all get misty-eyed
To give their daughter's hand

Oh maybe when we realize
How much there is to share
We'll find too much in common
To pretend it isn't there

Love in any language
Straight from the heart
Pulls us all together
Never apart
And once we learn to speak it
All the world will hear
Love in any language
Fluently spoken here

Tho' the rhetoric of government
May keep us worlds apart
There's no misinterpreting
The language of the heart

Love in any language
Straight from the heart
Pulls us all together
Never apart
And once we learn to speak it
All the world will hear
Love in any language
Fluently spoken here