the syrup and the meds

On the back-of-my-mind-to-do-list is an item that reads:

“Make heavy driving music compilation for iPod which includes:

Highway Star (Deep Purple)
Ace of Spades (Motorhead)
Killing in the Name (Rage Against the Machine)
In the Evening (Led Zep)
The Ocean (LZ)
Janes Addiction assortment
L.A. Woman (Doors). . .”

Idea being that I’ll need these songs, played at high volume, in order to stay awake on some future late-night road trip—one of those “We’ve been driving eleven hours already let’s just go another couple and not plow into the median” excursions.

Certain tunes—no matter where I am or what condition I’m in when I hear them—practically guarantee head banging and foot stomping (and if I’m driving practically guarantee I will receive a ticket for excessive speeding).

Today, my wife was on iMeem, with “Give Up The Funk” and “Flashlight,” (Parliament/Funkadelic) blasting away. In case you’re not hip, these are two of the most hyper-groovy body movers ever recorded. I know because I am one uptight Northern European white man, and they never fail to get me twitching and flailing across the kitchen floor.

* * *

Every Friday for the past few years, a bunch of us mantra-chanting musician freaks have gotten together for kirtan at somebody-or-other’s house. Start time is seven, and on a good night we’ll go past twelve. Harmonium, mrdanga, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, and a wide assortment of rhythm eggs, shakers, pill bottles half filled with mung beans, karatalas, ektar, gongs, and ankle bells.

We chant Hare Krishna. It’s the only song we can all agree on. Fortunately, there are unlimited tunes for it, and there’s no getting sick of it. Something about this mantra (especially when accompanied by a tight rhythm section) keeps us coming back for more and more, year after year.

The music starts off slowly, meditatively, and gradually builds in tempo and volume. Under the right leadership, a kirtan can build and go in any number of different melodic tangents, returning to a main theme, branching off into little double-time side trips and culminating in a joyous chorus. A really good kirtan can totally blow the stink off your life.

No matter how rocking the joint gets on a Friday night, though, it’s all about the mantra. With kirtan, music is secondary. It’s like the syrup carrying the meds. Fortunately, we know we need it, and for me, music has been the hook that has kept me chanting for the last twenty years. I need both—the syrup and the meds.