Music to Drive to

f

Yesterday I listened to a BBC radio documentary called "Music to Drive to" which was about instances of listening to music in a car has changed people's lives.

It featured the testimony of a few people such as a Scottish woman who related her story of driving home with her father and brother after a rough day at a divorce court. She said that things in the car were rather somber until her dad turned on the radio. Next thing she knew, The Who's "I'm Free" was playing and she realized that her divorce was not so much the end of something as the beginning.

The host James May also adds his own commentary and admitted that he only listens to progressive rock while alone in his car. He should come out of the prog closet, methinks.

The closest thing to an experience I have had that May spoke about in the program came back in 2004. I was driving back to Madison from Louisiana after having spent somewhere from 2-3 weeks down south after my father's death. Most of that time was spent alone, a stranger in a strange land. In addition to the loss of my dad, I had to deal with the local funeral home who assured me it would only take about 3 days for me to get my dad's ashes. Three days turned into a week and a half. Then there was the Teamsters. I hired a moving truck which was supposed to arrive on a certain day. It never showed so I called and was told it would arrive tomorrow, which didn't happen. After being told the truck would arrive tomorrow and not do so a few times, it finally did.

So, after having selling my dad's house, dealing with belongings, calling his friends up to tell them of his death, etc., I finally got to go home. Honestly, I don't think I'd ever wanted to be home more than at that time. There I was driving along in I-55 in Missouri when I put on Trace by Son Volt. "Tear-Stained Eye" was playing just as I passed the exit for the town of St. Genevieve, which is mentioned in the song. The tune is rather melancholic but it also has a side that approaches the sanguine such as the line "You'll find it's better at the end of the line."

When that part of the song played, tears welled up in my eyes and I started crying. While I probably should have pulled over, I didn't. But I kept my car on the road. Once my eyes had dried, it occurred to me that the hardest part of my father's death was over. The shock had come and (mostly) gone, family & friends had been notified, everything that needed to be done in Louisiana was done, and I was more than halfway home. I was awash in this feeling that the bad stuff was behind me and that it was now time to start moving forward again.

Has anyone out there had a life-changing experience while listening to music in a car?