Music With Meaning

I’ve listened to music every day of my life since I was, at least, 15.

That’s nearly 20 years of daily listening — songs I love, songs I hate, songs I don’t know.

Songs I recognise, songs I ‘get’, songs I’m utterly confused by.

At an understated average of an hour a day, that’s nearly 7,000 hours of listening — 292 days of my time on earth spent listening to music.

From another angle — at 4 minutes per song (there’s some Zeppelin in there…) that’s over 105,000 songs that have hit my ears.

But how many of them actually mean anything anymore?

After all, the marginal value of music has plummeted since the days of the cassette, or even the CD.

It’s bordering on a commodity now, background noise, a wall we build over our ears to prevent the outside world from sneaking in.

Yet at the same time, music is a huge part of my life.

It’s entwined in my sensory memory.

I have a Pavlovian reaction to certain songs, or choruses, or even opening notes.

They catapult my brain away to a memory, a moment, a feeling or an experience.

I’m not talking about euphoria, it’s more like the power some of these songs have to stop me in my tracks — like I’ve walked into a brick wall of nostalgia.

Or they make me outrageously happy, or wistful, or irritated, or frustrated, or sad.

And I want to write about these songs, explore why these songs have such meaning for me.

Indulge in the memory, note down the experience so I can remember it later.

Or maybe even show my son when he’s older and I’m his daggy old dad and he can learn a little bit about the person I am now, or the person I’ve been.

So why is a financial adviser banging on about music and songs and feelings and what not?

I mean, he should be talking about superannuation, investments and insurance, not this guff.

Well — two things:

1. I write for our business blog — www.mafd.com/blog — where we explore these financial issues and talk about superannuation, investments and insurance (as well as a heap of other stuff)

2. Getting financial advice is, at it’s simplest, about finding someone you trust, that can help guide you through the maze that is a lifetime of financial decisions.And I believe that to trust someone, you need to know them.

So I feel that sharing this kind of personal history and experience helps people get to know me.

And if it resonates with them and their approach to life, then we maybe we can chat sometime about what they want their financial house to look like.

But even if we don’t, the actual process of writing about these songs is so enjoyable, and fulfilling — meaningful even — that I’m loving it.

Actually, a third thing and what I’m most hoping for out of writing this is finding other people that care about music so much about music that we can talk about their Music With Meaning — because how exciting’s that?!

Anyway — that’s why I’m writing this stuff. As for a goal (I’m a planner, after all), I think 52 songs, 52 weeks, 1 year of posts is a decent objective.

And I would love it if you could join me as I go for it.