John Y’s Musings from the Middle: What’s Your Song for 2015?

This morning, watching the sun rise and drinking my coffee as I absorbed the idea of a new year unfurling, I wondered what song I would pick to mark the occasion — to set the tone for the first hours of an entire new year.

A raft of different jazz and rock and jazz-rock songs came to mind along with a classical tune and one hip-hop piece.

I decided my song for 2015 would be Aja by Steely Dan. But as I listened to the first few seconds of that song I realized that wasn’t what I wanted or needed.

I didn’t want a backward-looking song for 2015 but a forward-looking song. One with fresh words and surprising images that describe the beginning of a new chapter in life. A chapter I haven’t read before about concepts I don’t already think I understand but am excited to attempt to because I am finally ready.

A song that dances in my head and taps in my toes but also nourishes my soul and can animate my spirit. A song that doesn’t seem to have a beginning, middle or end, but is asynchronous yet flows sensibly in unseen directions. And flows toward something true I do not now know but have been searching for and lays it out before me to pick up or merely listen to again. Something light yet profound. Something curious yet familiar. Something obvious yet invisible.

Something musically that I can escape to whenever I want to that lifts my spirit and makes me feel like I am dancing while standing still. A song that helps me see things that can only be seen with my eyes closed and that has a rythmic melody that reminds me of my better self in better days that have not yet happened. But are about to.

A new song. That hasn’t been written or sung yet by anybody and can maybe only be heard in silence by the lyrical tenor I choose to live my life to in 2015.
And plays as often as I want to hear it on a new Sirius station nobody else can find but me.