The symphonic winds group in campus did a concert today that was entirely devoted to the music of the Star Wars films.  I love listening to the scores from films because, more than anything, the music’s job is to take whatever emotion the director intends to portray in a scene and distill that down into notes, scales, and time signatures.  Music is a sonic representation of emotion.  With films like Star Wars, the music is intensely evocative, at least for me.  I grew up with the movies; they triggered my intense love of story and narrative, and the music is such an integral part of that experience.  In many ways, the music is as important to me as those characters, those settings, those ideas.  Sitting there in the recital hall, with scenes from the films playing under that brilliant music, was nourishing to a very specific region of my soul.

I’ve always had a pretty good memory when it comes to song melodies and lines from movies.  There was a stretch where my partner refused to watch certain movies with me because I would whisper along with every bit of dialogue.  For all three original Star Wars movies, I can talk along with the movie, nailing the lines and the rhythm and the delivery.  It drives some people up the wall.  The other consequence of that kind of culture memory is that I can recognize songs quickly.  Tonight at Open Mic, a guy played a few notes to start a song, and I barked, laughing without being able to help myself.  Some people looked at me funny, my partner got it, and after the next bar, people realized that he was sliding into a heartfelt, folky rendition of “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys.  How long has it been since I last heard that song?  Years?  Probably, but still, just from the first three notes, I remembered it.  It was like those first notes unlocked a closet of memory, because I mouthed along to the rest of the song, knowing all the words.