There’s a reason music therapy is popular in nursing homes. Songs have a way of stirring memories that carry us back in time, often to happy moments of our youth.
Today’s 85-year-olds still enjoy the “big band” sounds that they once danced to, and 75-year-olds may smile to hear Elvis Presley or Johnny Cash.
I’ve thought about which songs would stir happy memories when I’m older and needing some therapy.
Then last week, a classic rock tune played over the Star Herald online radio that illustrated how music therapy works.
I was tapping my feet under my desk, secretly smiling and singing along in my head with the lyrics, as best as I could remember them.
The artist was Electric Light Orchestra and the song (one of their only hits) was “Don’t Bring Me Down.”
It hit the radio airwaves in the summer of 1979 when I was 10.
I first remember hearing it from a battery-powered transistor radio that my sister and I were singing along to in our homemade clothesline tent
It was a steamy 90 degrees in our little fort with the hot afternoon sun filtering through the floral-patterned bed sheets. But lounging on stacked pillows, popping Bazooka bubble gum, we were the “it girls.”
And we were accomplished vocalists, managing to find the chorus line harmony.
“I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor. Don’t bring me down …”
The only problem was we had no idea what words we were supposed to be singing.
Or what the words even meant.
“You’re looking good, just like a snake in the grass.” (We had never seen a good-looking snake, even on a good day).
“One of these days, you're gonna break your glass.” Wait … what?
These were the words we could decipher between the radio static and fast-moving music.
Then there were the words we tried to guess, randomly substituting words that rhymed, whether they made sense or not.
This was long before we could ask Siri to show us the song lyrics.
Last week, after hearing the tune online, I looked up the lyrics and discovered our confusion was warranted.
According to Wiki, the artist himself made the word “groos” to fill in where words were missing.
“Don't bring me dow-on, groos. … Don’t bring me dow-ow-on, groos.” “Don't bring me dow-ah-ow-own.”
And the song-writer also confessed it was a B-side add-on song to finish out the album, and he had quickly thrown it together, using a prerecorded percussion background.
At this point, I don’t even care.
Someday (maybe next week) when I need music therapy, I’ll request this song.
And I’ll close my eyes and drift back to the summer of 1979.
… when we were younger, times were simpler (for us anyway) and we were blissfully unaware of a troubled world beyond the fabric walls of our backyard clothesline tent.