Dizzy O'Brian

The Universality of Music In an interview, Sir Paul McCartney made the remark that, in the early days, they wrote ‘fan songs.’ Love letters to their fans, so to speak.  A songwriter may be initially inspired to write a song by something that has gone on in his own life but he can easily turn that into a song with a broad appeal by spotting the elements of it that most people have also experienced. Such songs speak to countless listeners who all share similar experiences of their own. The song “I’ve Got A Feeling,” by The Beatles epitomizes this kind of song; “I've got a feeling, a feeling deep inside Oh yeah, oh yeah. I've got a feeling, a feeling I can't hide Oh no, oh no, oh no. Yeah, I've got a feeling. Oh please believe me, I'd hate to miss the train Oh yeah, oh yeah. And if you leave me I won't be late again Oh no, oh no, oh no. Yeah, I've got a feeling, yeah. All these years I've been wandering around, Wondering how come no...

The Power of New Music Did you ever wonder what the world would be like if new music didn’t exist? One thing you have to understand is that new music has a long history. Let’s just go back to the Dark Ages, for example. This is not so long ago, but it will do for the sake of our discussion.  In the Dark Ages everything was under the control of a family called ‘The Church.’ The top dogs in The Church were the Popes and there were some really bad ones, like the Borgias, for example. Back in this time, if you stepped out of line or were suspected of saying anything out of line, you were quickly tried and executed by being stoned or burned at the stake.  Music was mainly done in the church and consisted of monotone chanting of Latin biblical texts. There was no melody and no rhythm except that it fit the syllables of the text. There were no musical instruments allowed. This was because the Church was afraid that music with melody and rhythm would just be too stimulating for the...