Happiness is....

quite a few things for me. The list changes from day to day, minute to minute, thought to thought. What makes me feel happy this second may have been something I hated or had never even knew existed yesterday. In the future, whole new things can make me happy. Today, these things come immediately to mind when I contemplate the feeling of happiness:
Music.
Thought-Provoking Conversation.
Feeling Wanted/Needed/Loved.
Making Someone Genuinely Laugh/Someone Making Me Genuinely Laugh.
Good Food.
Dancing.
Singing.
Writing.
Reading.
Learning.
Dreaming.
Accomplishing Goals/Tasks.

I shall elaborate on music behind the cut.


Music tends to be a universal and yet utterly personal affectation. People gravitate toward music as a means of escape, of communicating by skipping words and sliding right into emotions and ideas, of letting loose and feeling free and yet also connected to the world. Musical taste ranges from the outrageous, to the mainstream, and everything in between. I find myself enjoying music that makes me think, that is within my singing "range" (which seems to get much broader while driving or in the shower, for some reason), takes me back to a sensory memory from my past, or just makes me bop along to a fun and danceable beat.

I bounce back and forth between pop, to rap, to oldies, to nineties country, to indie artists, to eighties music, to rock and roll classics, and beyond. I tend to have a soft spot for songs and artists that evoke sensory memories from my past. For instance: Alice Cooper is and I'm sure always will be, one of my favorite artists. His music is quite a specific sort of sound, even though he has evolved himself throughout the many years he's been a popular musician. He fills a niche in my soul from my younger years. I discovered his unique and now classic sound from a cassette tape in my parent's house. I remember sitting on the front porch, listening to that tape until it became warped from use and being left in the rain quite a few times. I imagined so many times making music videos to songs such as Snakebite and Feed My Frankenstein. Mom would often walk into her bedroom to see my nine year old self jumping on my her bed, acting out the imaginary music videos, singing dutifully along to every word in every song on that worn out Hey Stoopid cassette tape. 

Hearing Alice Cooper takes me right back to those carefree days of my youth. I had nothing to worry about except not jumping too loudly on my mom's bed and finishing all the food on my plate and taking a bath every so often so the kids at school wouldn't make fun of me. Other than that, life was a breeze! Even though his lyrics are dark and sometimes twisted, he takes me back to being so young that the thought of high school seemed ages away and may never happen.

I feel that way about so many songs, they take my mind right back to very specific places in my life. I heard Alan Jackson's "Chattahoochie" on the radio this afternoon which jolted me right back to a flea market my parents used to frequent every few weeks. I vividly remember hearing that song playing on a radio at a booth as I perused a box of old VHS tapes That song also makes me remember a man named Jim because he and I used to dance to it at my old clogging club. I never knew the routine and could only dance it when he was there, because he would whisper the steps to me as I followed along beside him.

Simple moments and memories such as these, triggered by hearing some old song, makes me feel so happy. I don't care how well-written a song is, whether it won a Grammy or any awards of any kind. I don't care if it ever topped any charts. I don't care if anyone else ever liked the song.. if it takes me back to some happy memory I've had, I will smile, sing along, and drift away into the memory, letting it fill my head and heart and make the day and it's woes and troubles slide away.

Does music ever make you happy? What kind of music, songs, or artists make you smile?