  jon wrote this i respect this woah. Jon Dahlager write #3 "Notes" Some people have a dog. I have The Beatles and Elton John. Back when I was nine, my grandpa and I were driving up the North Shore in his beat-up Ford, singing along to a well-worn cassette of John Denver�s greatest hits. "Thank God I�m a Country Boy" was his favorite and mine too; we�d sing every word, the fine grain of my voice somehow mixing with his gravel. The crackling tape always reminded me of pancakes on a griddle.
I always sing something in the shower, and I can�t quit in the middle of a song. Most of the time it�s Peter, Paul & Mary�s version of "Puff the Magic Dragon. " I just wanted to play Mega Man before we got on the bus to go to the last day of school before winter vacation, but Jimmy had MTV on again. And then I heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit. " After school, I begged my mom to buy me "Nevermind" for Christmas. I still listen to it once a week, at least.
It was so different from the one- or two-hit wonders that I had previously been obsessed with; Kurt Cobain, Chris Novoselic and Dave Grohl reached into my muddled middle school mind, unleashing within me emotions and questions through screamed whispers of absolute feeling. I couldn�t get enough. I met my first college girlfriend because she had Soul Coughing�s "Sugar Free Jazz" playing in her room when I wandered past her open door early freshman year. This was my line: "You like this song? I didn�t think anybody but me even knew about this song. " Our grass grew so quickly.
Mom would send me out with the mower twice a week, and at first, I hated it. Once I got a Walkman that all changed. I�d pop in a scratchy, dubbed tape of Snoop Doggy Dogg�s "Doggystyle" and daydream about Snoop and Dr. Dre rolling up in a lowrider to steal me away from the white house/ green grass checkerboard. There was something depressing about living in a town where people pretended to be so much more than they actually were. I was white. I was na�ve.
I had never been to the �hood. But it didn�t matter. Snoop�s world of drive-bys and drug deals seemed much more real than my plastic existence. Sometimes I�d overdose. Musicland was my dealer in 1994, supplying me with hits of Ben Harper, Weezer, Soundgarden and Hole. It was a $23.98-a-week-plus-tax habit.
You know those stupid e-mail surveys people always forward to you and 47 of their closest friends? There�s one thing I always want to know instead of the answers to pointless questions about your latest crush or if you prefer Pepsi over Coke. "If you were stuck on an island with only one song for the rest of your life, what would it be? " I know it�s clich�, that whole island thing, but I think it�s an important question. I�d pick Pearl Jam�s B-side "Yellow Ledbetter. " In the middle of our first American History exam, Dave kicked the back of my chair when I started drumming the beat to Green Day�s "Basket Case" on my desk; what was I supposed to do?
My internal CD player was stuck on repeat. "Sgt. Pepper�s Lonely Hearts Club Band" is good to fall asleep to. I don�t mean it puts me to sleep; the first notes are like a remote control, flipping channels until I find the dream I want to watch. I don�t recommend "Dark Side of the Moon," however. The clock chimes at the beginning of "Time" always wake me up just as I�m about to lose consciousness.
And the last thing I want to do is associate music I love with rude awakenings. Before I got a steady job, my wallet never seemed full enough. I�d end up having to decide between McDonald�s and the latest Nine Inch Nails single. The Big Mac always lost. I won�t date a girl who doesn�t like Weezer. It�s just not going to happen.
If she doesn�t like them, it�s over. I don�t know if that is the best way to find the so-called "right" person, but I need a girl who appreciates "In the Garage" and "Across the Sea" as much as I do. Well, I guess she doesn�t have to have the exact same favorite Weezer songs, but it would be nice. Sharing music like that creates something I can�t really describe. It�s a bond. A bond that causes each person�s eyes to perk up at the exact same time when he or she is particularly moved by a lyric.
A bond that makes one person tell the other person before anyone else about the new life-changing record they just heard. A bond that allows the two individuals to move in unison, becoming much more than dancing. Music makes me want to fuck. Marie figured we should rent a horror movie; any old slasher flick would do. "Just in case I scream," she said to me matter-of-factly. Maybe she would scream.
Maybe not. But I really didn�t care if my parents heard. So I convinced her to do it during the opening credits of Star Wars instead. Back in 8th grade I had determined that losing my virginity with the movie�s main title as soundtrack�me thrusting with each cymbal crash �would be the coolest thing ever. I was right. Thank you John Williams.
Too many people only like happy music. "Why listen to something that makes you sad? " they ask. I didn�t care about geometry the day I found out Kurt Cobain had killed himself. I didn�t care about English or history either. Nothing mattered, and everything imploded.
Hope, the little shining sprite that danced and sang in the darkest corners of life, had fallen silent and gray. I felt like my best friend was gone, leaving me alone to deal with high school, girls and thick jocks in the locker room who just wanted to talk about their dicks. When Katie dumped me five days before I headed off to college, I played Limp Bizkit�s "Nookie" over and over again, screaming along with Fred Durst. She hated that song. It�s all I listened to for weeks. Dad headed to the hospital for the first time in December.
For a month, I listened to Foo Fighters� "The Colour and the Shape" every night before I fell asleep. It didn�t matter that I had hundreds of other CDs to chose from, I couldn�t stop myself from listening to that particular collection of songs. I wanted to just listen to "Hero" over and over again, with its undulating guitar line and refrain: "There goes my hero/ watch him as he goes/ There goes my hero/ he�s ordinary. " But too much of a good song, especially a good song that hurts, is like too much of anything else. Still, I would get out of bed and lie on the floor during that song just to feel the bass from the speakers vibrate each vertebrae in my back. I wouldn�t really close my eyes until the final track�s very last note was absorbed by the hundreds of posters and stickers that plastered my walls like a slightly off-kilter mosaic.
Some albums are like that. I just want to scream all the time. Not regular screaming, however. I want to scream in tune. The pressure builds. It starts as a nudge, a little push.
And then it grows and grows and grows, a malignant tumor on your psyche. You have to get good grades. You have to have an internship. You have to tell your girlfriend if she�s the one or not, at least for now. You have to make the people happy. Everything tightens.
"Release. " Now there�s a song to make you feel lighter. Eddie Vedder�s simple refrain, "release me," is enough to wash it all away. Sometimes I wonder if I believe in anything, if I have anything to hold onto, if I understand what it is that blueprints my life. I�m not so sure about the whole God thing. And science confounds me to no end; it seems that even something that claims to be objective and true requires faith of some sort.
Friends, colleagues, and yes, even family, come and go. Sometimes I think there isn�t anything I can count on when nothing seems to make sense. And then I wake up and listen. I�ll be sitting alone in my room, near crying because something in my life is wrong�girlfriend leaves me for my best friend, dad�s in the hospital for chemotherapy, or I oversleep and miss a test�when I�ll catch the faint sound of R.E.M.�s "Everybody Hurts" coming from nearby. Most of the time it�s just in my head, but not always. The thing is, I�ve realized that I always have music.
It�s my best friend, and it never lets me down. 
