On Music

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
— Aldous Huxley

Image by Armin Forster from Pixabay

Whatever prevents people from sharing the music that tears through them, I don’t have.

I also wonder whether music can be described well enough for someone else to feel even a fraction of what it sounds like to me. On Music is my attempt to do that. These will be short(ish) reflections, no more than 800 words, on the songs that move me, why they linger, what images they conjure, and why some deserve a place among the greatest of all time.

The songs themselves will come from everywhere: old and new, famous and obscure, some universally adored, others known only to the algorithm, me, and a handful of devoted strangers in the comments.

I’m not a musician. You won’t find any talk about staccato, legato, or the naming of any chords. No reviews, no technical breakdowns, I’m simply letting my imagination take the wheel, describing songs through moods, metaphors, and sensations.

God knows, I’m tired of works—mine included—that focus solely on how terrible everything is.

The state of the world is undoubtedly bleak, but it feels especially heavy when every other story in your feed becomes a relentless procession of decline, destruction, and dehumanisation.

So for the sake of balance, instead of dwelling on what disturbs me, On Music is where I’ll unravel the songs that make me feel, think, and sometimes float.

I’ll still be commenting on the utter madness of modernity and other interests. But this section is music focused because I find it impossible to be uninterested in a medium that has the power to profoundly alter you, even if only briefly.

In my world, that’s nothing to be casual about. Just like a painter studies a landscape, or a photographer waits for a smile, putting music under a magnifying glass is an attempt to honour its power.

I’m also creating this because it’s frustratingly rare to find deep dives into the songs I love most. To feel as if you’ve been rearranged, yet discover no writing that seriously reflects the work, is exasperating. Most interviews gloss over individual tracks, leaving a gap around the ones that, for a moment, feel like humanity’s only cure.

I have a relentless need to understand the things that move me, so reading YouTube comments under songs I adore goes some way to satisfying that curiosity, but they never quite captured what I feel. So this here project is partly my way of writing what I’d most like to read.

But above all else, sharing music just feels good. Far be it from me to gatekeep something that has given me so much. For all the complications the digital age brings artists, access to almost all of the world’s recorded music is a gift, giving us a much-needed chance to share more than our knee-jerk thoughts.

There’s also an intimacy in sharing music. It often articulates what can’t be verbalised, and in doing so reflects the most tender parts of who we are. It’s like oversharing without having to say a word. And I find something appealing about exposure without disclosure.

Music is also worth sharing because more than just a song— you’re offering a temporary companion, a source of relief, hope, a point of resonance, a note that tugs at something buried, and, unlike much else—something you might never forget.

As my range of emotions has expanded with age, so too have the sounds that soothe them. To give an idea of what to expect is difficult because I’m stirred by music across all genres, but two threads do stand out most in my taste: melancholic and euphoric. One invites you inward, the other pulls you outward, and together they map the range of what music can do.

I’m drawn to downtempo. To me, melancholic isn’t necessarily sad but contemplative. Euphoric music, on the other hand, is the audio equivalent of LSD, a rush of sound that twists perception, floods the senses, and makes you feel so alive you could burst.

This isn’t a strict rule; much of what I love falls outside these categories. But if you’re into blues, folk, electronic, “world music”, country, soul, R&B, psychedelic rock, rap, trip-hop, or dream-pop, and more, stick around.

Apart from today, new posts in this series will be shared on Sundays. As I’m grateful to everyone who subscribes, if the music that has kept me company finds a way to keep you company too, then this little project will have done its job.