Dadman over at Cosmic Conservative often posts YouTube performances by musicians from the 70s. He and Cosmic have a friendly debate going on about which decade, the 60s or the 70s, produced the best music. I choose to stay out of that one, because I love music from both those eras (as well as all the later ones).

Today Dadman puts up one of my favorites of all time, Steely Dan's Do It Again. As I was listening to it, I started to wonder why I hardly ever listen to music, despite the fact that I have a deep and abiding love for it. I didn't linger too long on the thought, because I wanted to get back to listening to Steely Dan. And after the song finished, I had to ask myself the question, "Self, if you say you love music so much, why do you listen to music so little?"

After going through a few surface rationales that just didn't seem to fit, I thought about how I had just listened to Do It Again: I had tried to scroll down to read other posts at CC while the YouTube video was playing, but I couldn't get anywhere with that because I was too involved in listening to the music. I was either singing along in my head (I sound much better when I sing in my head than when I actually let air vibrate my vocal cords), following the bass line, or maybe the plastic organ solo, or the percussion.

But whatever part of the music I was concentrating on at the time, it consumed too much of my attention for me to do much of anything else. When I listen to music, I'm immersed in it. My very soul resonates with the music.

And if I can't do it right when I'm listening to music, I'd rather wait until I have the time and concentration I need to listen the way I want to.