Here I am, having moved to the North of Sweden, in search of stillness and to dedicate my life to our art: music. Makes you wonder why music is so important that it is worth these kinds of extreme measures, right? Of course we are professional musicians, so that’s a thing. But still, it’s not just us: music is universally important to mankind. For as long as humans roam the earth, music accompanied us.
I’ve been musing over it for a while now and I’ll give you some things I came up with. I’ll tell you about it from my own perspective as a singer and songwriter.
From when I was very young, I have been the hero in my own tales. Weaving wonderful worlds, where I was the lost heir of a great line of healers, destined for greatness, but trapped in a mundane life.
Or being an orphan, living in a hostile boarding house where the trees in the garden could speak. Naturally I was the only one who could hear them!
My entire childhood was spent with imaginary friends and surrounded by the soothing forces of nature. In retrospect, it was a safe haven from a not so secure world I felt I was dumped in (maybe you can relate to that feeling?).
It is quite similar to what telling tales through music brought me: a way to conduct an inward search, a safe haven in a mad world. In writing songs, I get to explore what’s hidden. In singing them, I can experience the depth of the emotions. All within the protection of chords, notes and rhythm.
I feel my music has brought me a way to escape from everyday life, of the hardships I encountered and couldn’t make sense of back then. I find that in writing and singing my own music, but also listening to the work of others.
The funny thing is, that when something is put into a song, it has the tendency to become universal. It’s not about me and my story anymore, it is a piece of what all human beings come across. It has grown above me.
And that’s what music is about, I guess. A way to immerse yourself in another world, by feeling everything the music evokes. Music is the language of the soul. It’s about expressing what lives deep inside and where words are simply not enough.
Music is the only artform I know that is so close to our own emotions in the moment we feel them. Music is a way to transcend time, it seems eternal. It brings an instant recognition of who you truly are and allows an instant change of perspective. Maybe that’s why it’s so soothing, music truly is a miracle!