HeartSong

Songs and humanity have co-existed since the beginning of humanity. The study of music history actually includes the pre-historic era as well. Why would that be one would wonder?

To find the answer is actually pretty simple. Close your eyes for a while and try to relax, the odds are the first that comes to your mind when you try to relax is one or more songs that mean something to you. Songs that you have come to love over time, touched you in a way you never imagined. Songs with their incredible ability to make you groove, to make you dance, to make you happy and to make you cry. Melodies and poetry connected so deep into human emotion, making them part of who you are.

If you really try to pinpoint the one song that lives above all else in an instant, you may find it an almost impossible task to perform. With so many genres, languages, styles and core instruments to choose from. But the ultimate goal of these songs remains the same, to take you away from this world for a brief moment into a private, well-guarded space of your own. For some that connection is with classical music, some with ballads or pop or Sufi and some with rock and while most people find it difficult to digest, even heavy metal for some works like a charm to help relax. 

Most people may not realize, but we mostly pick songs we love based on certain memories associated with them. Be it a first kiss, a dance, travel or even heartbreak. 

For instance, each time I hear the song Kuch Is Tarah by Atif Aslam, it takes me back to when I truly fell in love with the girl I ended up marrying or whenever I listen to Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, I still see myself sitting with my closest friends in a car singing loud and grooving to the music. A million repeats of Michael Learns to Rock, so much so that even my mom to date recognizes the songs. 

When September Ends by Green Day takes me back to my first stint at living alone. Each time I headed to the park and switched on music for my run, this was the first track on my playlist... listen to it today with my eyes closed and I can still see the green canopies, smell the leaves and wet mud and feel a certain amount of happy inside. 

Sure you may love a million songs, but a limited few will always be with you in a special way. Almost like a playlist of your life... Currently, with the time being spent at home, due to Coronavirus, if you actually go back to these songs, you will realize what I am trying to say here...

And then comes that one song, which you can say totally defines you... connects with you at a level so deep you never thought was possible. Hear it a million times and the emotion it renders remains virgin, untouched, pure and reflection what you truly feel inside... As we grow, we tend to become what others expect us to become and yet that one song is always there to hold back a piece of who you truly are.

I call it the 'Heartsong'... the one song that will have a permanent place in your heart for life... You may like a thousand songs, you may love a hundred songs and yet this one will always feel different.

For me, it is undoubtedly 'Tere Bin Nahin Lagda' by Late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (video) - not the remake (which I just cannot relate to even though it may be a good song on its own). But coming back to this original song, which has stuck with me ever since I first heard it the early 2000s and will go with me to my grave. 

The emotion, the longing, the pure unbridled hunger for love beyond any boundaries or logic, connected possibly to the undying hopeless romantic inside or simply the want to be an undying hopeless romantic in the core. The desire to love without bringing in the complexities of society or reasoning... to love and to be loved purely just because you feel it inside and not because there is some reason for it... and then, nothing else matters... no achievements greater and nothing more precious. 

No matter how busy, no matter how lost, no matter how many times on repeat the song plays back over decades and yet the connection still unbroken, the emotion still strong, the happiness to know that something pure still resides inside, giving a pleasure unparalleled. I will always stop to feel the song... It is... my 'Heartsong'...

If you haven't found that song yet, do not fret, it is as it sounds... you just haven't found it 'yet'... or maybe you have, but you just haven't realized it yet. Just close your eyes and try to relax... the one song that will always make you feel alive... 

So then... What's your Heartsong???