What Music Speaks, part eight — The song poured lazy through the radio’s single speaker, filling the hot afternoon silence with its somnolent groove and crackle. James Taylor’s voice telling me to gather round, that he was my handy man, saturated the summer air hanging stagnant on the covered porch. You sat beside me on the…

What Music Speaks, part seven — “You’ll Be In My Heart,” Phil Collins, Tarzan (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) We buy the VHS for Disney’s animated feature, Tarzan, in late 1999. I’m twenty-seven, he’s three. One of the feature songs, “You’ll Be In My Heart” by Phil Collins (that will go on to win an Academy Award…

What Music Speaks, part six — The smell of gasoline or fresh horse manure, the burned edges of pooled chicken grease on a hot sheet pan, cystic acne popping videos, James Gandolfini, old cemeteries, algae covered ponds, amateur gangbang porn: some of my favorite things are not commonly meant to be loved or found desirable. I’ve…

What Music Speaks, part five — Music is in the world with you. You’ve interacted with it, saw its face, held its arms, ran towards its heat. It’s been with you in those moments; the ones you want to remember, the ones you want to forget. Music has been your companion, your confidant. It’s been a…

What Music Speaks, part four — The Counting Crows’ debut album August and Everything After was released on September 14, 1993, nine months and eleven days after I gave birth to my first child, a daughter; cone of head, tan of skin. …

What Music Speaks, part four — Music is in the world with you. You’ve interacted with it, seen its face, held its arms, run towards its heat. It’s been with you in those moments — the ones you want to remember, the ones you want to forget. Music has been your companion, your confidant. It has…

What Music Speaks, part three — Behind the curtain-eclipse the birds sing the day awake. In the warming dim I see his hair spiderwebbed across the pillow, haloing the youth of his head. His face, his body, oh so cold, oh so thankfully covered. The dull smell of death heavy in the room where the birds’…

What Music Speaks, part two — Was music your escape too? A hatch­–neither rusted nor heavy, no struggle or strength needed to achieve egress. This hatch, a beauty-opening. Danced into. An easy sliding until your surface became soaked, the beat synchronizing with yours until there was nothing else. An overt hiding place, taking you in one…

A column about music, part one: Why Music Speaks — Because it’s buoyed me from birth. Because it is a soothing, new skin inside my mother’s hum. Because my record player with the clown under the lid stared back at me while the shiny black spun. Because I could close my bedroom door and hide with it, in it. Because…