Now's the Time the Time is Now

This was written as part of Genie Alisa's Living Out Loud project for October.

Music is one of the most important things in my world and I've spent most of my life chasing the kind that moves me, makes me happy, makes me think, makes me feel better, or quite simply allows me to rock out - an essential component of my mental health. It's impossible for me to name one theme song, and I can really barely stop at less than ten. There have just been that many that fit at various times and seasons, for reasons that made perfect sense at the time and usually still do. I've latched on to some - Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls, Change by Blind Melon, To Live is To Fly by Cowboy Junkies, Coming Home by Cinderella - for a long damned time, such that they've become part of my eternal playlist. But when it comes to a theme song, what could really be more powerful than the one that includes the lyrics I've had as my Facebook "About Me" since I set up my page?

Don't answer that. Just know that these two lines from Led Zeppelin's Ramble On are as close to a lifelist as I've managed to get in the past few years that have held an almost unbearable amount of change:

"Now's the time the time is now

to sing my song."

You know, I'm not going around the world and I do not have to find my girl. I had, however, been that way - whatever way that was I was - very nearly (at least) ten years to the day, and it was getting really old. It was move forward or die, sing or go mute, live, or, predictably, die. At least inside.

I grew up on Zeppelin. My parents saw them live, a bit of trivia I held up proudly at parties in college where one of my clearest memories remains of my friend Joey jumping on his bed to "D'yer Maker," singing "Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, you don't have to go," etc. That was when I came to own them, learned all the words, really got that the bands I knew from my own era had stolen pretty much everything they had from them but oh well - all the good stuff has to start somewhere, right?

I moved on deeper into rock 'n roll, as deep as it may be possible for a person in a life like mine to get. I listened to Led Zeppelin continually, repeatedly, and when the time came where all the roads I'd taken had led me to a place I did not want to be in any way, shape or form, I found in Ramble On the lyrical permission I needed to grab onto something that gave me something to grab onto. It wasn't much - shouldn't seem like much, anyway, just an old song. But when you don't know what your original work is anymore, when the words run dry, I thank God that I've immersed myself in some really good stuff that other people have written and played over the years, to help me get back on track until I can work it out on my own.

It's a mantra now, in the car, in a meeting. "Now's the time the time is now." And sometimes I don't even get to the second line, because the first is enough - all I need to ground me, a weird, British rock zen koan.

But it really should be taken further, because if it's time for anything it's  to sing my song. I get it, even when it's hard, I get it.

Comments

[Megan H]

I love this line you wrote "But when you don't know what your original work is anymore, when the words run dry . . ." I think maybe this is the magic of music. It's still there when the words run dry. Great post.

[karal]

oh my. i copied the same phrase as Megan only to get to the bottom of your post and see she beat me to it. yep, that's the magic, right there.

[AnnQ]

I think it's way cool your parents saw Zeppelin! :-)

[Grace]

And to our health we drank a thousand times...:)

[Jessica]

If I showed my husband this post, he'd just tell it is another reason I should like Zeppelin.

I KNOW. It's blasphemy...I don't know a single song...

http://www.booshy.wordpress.com

[Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah]

I love you even more now.

That is my favorite Zeppelin song.

[Deb on the Rocks]

I just heard it, and had to come and tell you. xoxo