The Magic of Background Music

It has recently come to my attention just how amazing background music is. I'm not just talking in movies and TV shows (although that is a large part of it), but also in performances and even real life situations when you're faced with an event and a certain song pops into your head. All of these lyrical representations of moods and feelings have recently begun to make an impact in my life.

If you've ever seen an episode of Grey's Anatomy, then you know that at the end of every episode, a song plays while the final clips roll that sort of sum up the episode's theme. It's always a different song and sometimes I've heard it before, and sometimes I haven't, but it always brings about just the emotion that they are trying to portray be it hopeful or emotional or heavy... it just always manages to work. I don't know if there are teams of people who work every day just pouring over songs to stick them in TV shows and movies, but if there are, they are good at what they do, and if there aren't- Well then, whoever takes on that responsibility along with their other duties is virtually a super hero.

It's not only ending montages, but also the music that plays throughout an entire episode, movie, or show. Sometimes moments wouldn't be funny if there wasn't awkward sounding music playing behind it. You wouldn't realize that a pause was an awkward length, or you might not have realized that something humorous was just said because it was masked behind a serious tone. But music reveals all those hidden fault-lines.

I went to the circus today, and you knew when an act was supposed to make you want to hold your breath, or when you were supposed to view it as beautiful, or funny, or daring, or stupid... And you didn't know it by watching the show. You could have known how to feel just by listening to the music. The clowns have their stupid little horn medley that makes you want to laugh before you even see them tripping over each other, but the people who danced across the ceiling suspended by flowing strips of fabric were beautiful without even watching them because of their bone-chilling ballad.

I guess background music is always there, and it always does it's job, but it takes a lot of thinking and searching and closing your eyes to fully appreciate how magical it is. And it is magic.

Why today was awesome: I got to witness another form of magic. I got to watch sugar become heated and spun in a circle until it developed wispy fibers that stuck together and floated through the air like snow. They became stuck in my hair and they were sweet and delicious, and the ones that stayed in the machine became stuck to cones and shoved in bags. Yes, dear readers. I made cotton candy from scratch.

My year in numbers:

How Many Books I've Read: 6

How Many Times I've Lost My Key: 7

How Many Bowls of Soup I've Consumed: 29