Mike's Musings: Imagination

The imagination plays a critical part in the expansive turn of the ‘how’ in bringing to life the songs, instrumentals, and arrangements of our world. The breadth is far and wide, and the colors of any musical rainbow fill the sky, and the textures are tumultuous! And so, you may be poised and affected such that you take it all as a complete script. Or maybe not… You might be thinking of the ‘why,’ ‘where,’ and ‘when’ as well. Why not? And with that, a state of confusion hovers close by.
“Tell us about the why, where, and when, Mr. Chunn.”
“T’is my pleasurable opportunity!”

If we stand back from our adventures and exploits, all driven on and through the writing and performance of songs, then what maintains the special character of the endeavor? It’s a cluster of combinations, but really, it’s PEOPLE! Each participant brings their own contribution. But by then, the language of the spheres and the dialogue of the lyric play their part in the masterful construction. They need to be ‘put together,’ after all, and the music is the hold-all that brings them to eternal connection.

The words and the music.
That which becomes a song and fosters as wide an appreciation as it deserves. How deserving are yours? Time to close your eyes and engage your imagination. Your creative force. That person passing you by on a Lime scooter—what do they have to offer? An epithet or two? A hummed melody? A sharp focus on rhymes? Or a series of verses that have no rhymes at all? Long, circling options—the where. And look at your clock. There’s the when. Perhaps the when is simply more of a whenever.

“Surely, you can’t have a song with no rhymes at all,” I hear you say.
“But you can!”
“Like what?”
“Like this…”
Simon and Garfunkel - America

And that song has covered the world—well, certainly a wide raft of English-speaking nations. And that collectivity drives the ‘why.’ The imagination can take wide liberties with things like this. For example, if you were about to write a song and thought, “I won’t put any rhymes in it,” then you may have come up with the following stanza for starters:

She gets happy when she sings
On a Tuesday.
Let’s have a coffee and catch up on a weekend.
Let’s take the chance to pass on by.

There you go. The why floats but doesn’t necessarily play a part. Imaginative lyrics? Not exactly. Terrible lyrics? Yes, they are terrible.
And no rhymes? None at all. Task done. And a song is launched. And falls on the wasteland, growing old… with its trousers rolled. So there it lies, and we can ask without trepidation, WHY? We already have a WHEN and a WHO. The why is the fact that you’ve started something creative. That’s enough.

And the way I see it, there’s no need to consider, engage, explore, relate, or embrace a WHY. Don’t bother with descriptive WHYs. Just charge on!

The success of a song on the palette of the world’s repertoire comes down to knowing such a thing exists and is then heard. And we fall into the sphere. It doesn’t need some kind of transcendent explanation. Let it.