This I Believe

Ashley - Centerville, Ohio
Entered on November 12, 2007
Age Group: Under 18
Themes: creativity

I believe in how songs can affect people. Songs always seem to change my mood. If I’m in a bad mood I instantly feel better when I listen to my favorite song. Songs always make me feel good, like I can’t be stopped. In the ipod commercials, the beginning shows a person not listening to music and bored. Then they are given an ipod and immediately jumping around because they are listening to music. Songs are also used as calming devices. Music such as, classical or ocean sounds are sometimes used to calm people. People use songs to express themselves, like an art, if song writers want to let something out they write a song about it.

I am a dancer; I obviously love music and movement. When I dance I really have to feel and understand what the singer/writer was going through during the time that they wrote it. However, I can’t just put on music and move like there’s no life in me. I have to express how I feel through the way I dance. At my dance studio we are allowed to pick the songs we want to dance a solo to. I have to choose very carefully because I want to make sure that I can portray the emotion that the writer was aiming for. My mom always told me that whenever she broke up with one of her old boyfriends in high school she would always listen to “Hopelessly Devoted to You” from the movie Grease. She would listen to it because it would make her feel better.

Also, songs from my childhood inspire me. I used to listen to N*Sync and Backstreet Boys in elementary school. Whenever I hear those songs now I think back to those times when my friends and I would dance all night at our annual sleepovers. The reason those songs affect me now is the memories they bring back. Old songs such as the ones I mentioned above can be held sentimentally to a person. Whenever they hear those songs they are reminded of the memories associated with it.

I believe in the sense of bonding through a song. I believe in the way a simple song can change a simple person.