Stephanie Effken

    Recently, I decided to no longer take music at face value, but to listen to, overanalyze and piece together the meaning of a song.
     I have found that what I once enjoyed listening to no longer resonates with who I am.
     In high school I enjoyed the lesser known emo and underground punk bands. No, I was not a freak who wore a dog collar or died their hair green, nor was I a tree-hugger.
     For some unknown reason I felt that the poetic suicidal lyrics and whining vocal style of the emo band Dashboard Confessionals spoke to me–the Jesus-loving, school body president homecoming princess.
     The music speaks of unrequited love, deep sobs echoing in the downpour of a summer's storm and the lingering spirit of a former love.
     I couldn't relate to any of these messages.
     When coming to Nebraska after high school, I quickly learned that country music was a more popular genre than I had hoped it would be and forcefully boycotted the sad tales of dead dogs and broken-down combines that seemed to consume the radio stations.
     My junior year of college I gave in to the catchy rhythms and chord schemes that make up country music. Two of the five radio settings in my car are now set to country.
     To my surprise, country music was about more than dead dogs and I was not forced to listen to the Bush-bashing Dixie Chicks. Instead I discovered a diverse set of stories. Some stories were equal in the depression factor with my previously loved emo music, but others were about patriotism, the love of a father and daughter and the good life in the heartland.
     At least some music in the country genre is worth relating to, and is often fairly applicable to life.
     Beyond my newfound love of country, I have always enjoyed listening to contemporary Christian music.
     For me, it was unheard of to actually play Christian music on the radio. That would surely be grounds at home for some crazy atheist to sue for his right to listen to 100.7 without infringing on his religious-freedom to denounce God.
     Big shocker here–New York and Nebraska are two different worlds.
     The songs on the contemporary Christian stations are similar in style to many other musical genres and don't usually depress me with tales of woe–though occasionally frustrate me with far-out theology, but I won't digress.
     My desire to look deeper into the meaning of music was sparked by a realization of both myself and my husband that we no longer enjoy music we listened to in high school.
     Did we really listen to the words in the first place?
     Maybe, maybe not. Often people just go through the motions of singing their favorite songs on the radio without listening to the message.
     I think that in some subconscious way words resonate with people's life experiences, whether they mean it to or not.
     Well-liked songs meet people where they're at.
     I'm sure that another stage in my life will call for another genre of music.