I am thankful for music

Whatever music does, it does without explaining itself. Four notes can reset a mood faster than an hour of reasoning about that mood.

It also works as a filing system. A song you haven't heard since you were nineteen returns the whole room — the carpet, the person, the weather outside. Nothing else hands you your own past that intact.

Most listening now is background, though. Music thinned into a productivity aid, something running under the emails.

Play one song today with nothing else happening. Not while doing anything. Three minutes, just the song. It's a different experience than you remember.