From Vinyl to YouTube: Escape into Music, Discover New Frontiers

The Timeless Power of Music to Carry You Away...

We all have them…. bad days… ugh! Every scenario you can feel… from “My life is over,” to “Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day.” Everything from, I crashed my car and lost my job to “Nothing is really wrong, feeling like I don’t belong.” Sometimes life socks a hard punch, other times you just feel like, “Hangin’ around, Nothing to do but frown… Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.”

So, what do you do when you need to escape for a bit - To shake off a bad day, a bad feeling, a bad relationship?

We used to turn on the radio, put on an album, and lose ourselves in the music. Some of us learned to play music, learned to lose ourselves in a totally different way. We’d get lost in the process of learning to make the sounds we’d hear or in creating new sounds.

It was a way of life, it was common, accepted, written about. Take “Angie Baby,” a song made famous by Helen Reddy in 1974:

You live your life in the songs you hear             

On the rock 'n' roll radio             

And when a young girl doesn't have any friends             

That's a really nice place to go.

Ok… so the rest of that song paints poor Angie as insane… But, I like that this verse reminds us that music can be a means to let go, to escape the real world for a while.

So, by now you may have gotten the idea that I view life as a song. Kinda… 😉 If it can be experienced, felt, or talked about, there’s a song that was written about it. If not (highly unlikely), I’ll write it. 😊 I love getting lost in music.

I have a confession to make… I love watching “reaction videos”! I have so much respect for the people who make them. Not only do they let people watch them rock out, but they also sit through songs that weren’t necessarily their “cup of tea,” simply because their followers want them to. Most of these young people are initially into a totally different vibe than the songs they are asked to experience. But, over and over again, they are very pleasantly surprised by the sounds that come through their speakers. I love seeing them find music that catches them off guard and makes them pause, smile, or even shout out loud, music they didn’t know existed, and an artistry they admit they’ve never experienced. Most of all, I love that through these reaction channels, people are taking time out to just experience music!

Those of us of a certain generation used to spend a whole day listening to an album. Every song, back to back, in a kind of music lover’s version of a book club. That’s where the idea of “concept albums” was born. Bands would create albums unified by a central theme, narrative, or musical concept, rather than just a collection of unrelated tracks. They took the listener on a journey meant to engage the mind—not just provide background ambience or dance music.  

Albums like this—and many individual songs—taught us to use our minds, to want to learn about how the sounds were made: What about that chord progression, those harmonies, or that rhythm created such an emotion in us? What touched the songwriter so deeply they felt they needed to put those words to music? Decades-old songs are still discussed and debated today. Just who was “Miss American Pie,” and why did those

'good ol’ boys" sing, "This’ll be the day that I die,” on “the day the music died”? Why did someone bake a cake and then name it “MacArthur’s Park”? Who left it out in the rain? And for goodness' sake, why was the icing green!

People like “The Professor of Rock” make a living from rehashing those old songs and introducing them to new generations. Suddenly, all those songs are “back again, just like a long lost friend…. Every Sha-la-la-la, every Wo-o-wo-oh, still shines,” and people are wondering why music like this isn’t written anymore. Suddenly, listeners are thinking about music again—engaging with it intellectually and emotionally.

And that’s what excites me most about these reaction channels: they remind us to listen. Not just to let music play while we fold laundry, or do our homework, but to stop, pay attention, and feel. Music has always been more than entertainment—it’s therapy, escape, memory, and joy wrapped up in sound. It connects us to ourselves, to others, and even to the past.

My hope is that this renewed interest in timeless music—from YouTube channels to nostalgia playlists—sparks something bigger. Maybe it inspires people to dust off that guitar in the corner, finally take lessons, or carve out time to sit with an album start to finish. Because when we engage deeply with music, whether by listening, questioning, or creating, it makes the hard days a little lighter and the good days even better.

So if life feels heavy, maybe it’s time to do what Angie did—live a little in the songs. Who knows, you might find a new favorite, or rediscover an old one that still shines.