A few days ago, my little sister invited me downstairs to watch The Prince of Egypt. I’m pretty sure I grew up watching it, but even if I didn’t, it’s an amazing movie. The characters are well-written (I personally love it when the comic relief characters side with the antagonist) and the soundtrack is amazing. For the first time, I noticed that even the music has symbolism in it. My sister apparently loved the movie so much (she hasn’t seen it in a while) that she’s been binging a TV show about Egyptian archaeology. (One of the archaeologists has the exact same hair as the evil lady from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and her partner dresses like he’s from a Poirot novel. It’s trippy.
Anyway, my sister has also been playing the soundtrack. Notably, she played a few of the songs during a car trip up to the city I’ll be working in this fall. I got to drop by my workplace and get a few things done while my mom and sister had a chiropractic appointment. Anyway, somehow, the Prince of Egypt soundtrack eventually turned into VeggieTales Silly Songs.
And we had a blast.
There are a few moments in life when you’re able to just…be happy. For me, rocking out to “Barbara Manatee” in the back of my mom’s SUV was one of those moments. My sister has evidently gotten a bit more sophisticated over the years, as by the time we got to Oklahoma she’d switched to playing Italian music. I got to control the music on the ride home, and I continued the VeggieTales theme by playing the Larryboy theme song. I played the extended version, of course, specifically because it includes a voiceover from Larry himself talking about how gas is ten cents a gallon cheaper in a nearby town. After that, I played a nice combination of Christian pop and Gaelic. I made my sister’s eyes go wide by playing a song that started out normal, but picked up the tempo so much at the end that the singer was practically rapping. My sister makes the best facial expressions. Watching her face was better than listening to the actual song.
I wonder what’s so special about music. It brings people together. It expresses the entire range of human emotions. By looking at modern pop music, you can see what’s important to society. (Hint: it’s nothing good.) I like having quiet music going on in the background when I’m writing or studying, and more upbeat, lyrical music when I’m knitting or crocheting.
Since music is so important, it’s bound to feature in other works of art. My books reference music quite a bit. It gets a bit tricky, too, since historical fiction involves a lot of songs and instruments that don’t exist anymore. We have a few pieces of old church music (“Nobilis Humilis” is a wonderful example) but not much else to go off of. So I get to use my imagination to fill in the blanks.
What sort of music do you listen to? Let me know in the comments below! God bless you, dear readers, and don’t forget to review us on Amazon!