Music's power to mobilize thought and emotion

OK. Time to muse.

Is it not amazing the power that music has on emotion?

My younger brother, Paul, recently gave me a "best of Chicago" 2-CD compilation. Listening to the songs, it brought back some great memories, and, not surprisingly, it spurred me on to buying some old Chicago albums which I'd listened to on vinyl, but which probably weren't even mine (I think most of them belonged to my older brother, Marcus.)

Anyway, these re-issue albums are really inexpensive (got three of them, including shipping and handling for under $25), and now I've got 5 Chicago albums, including "Chicago Transit Authority" (also known as Chicago I), "Chicago" (aka Chicago II), "Chicago V", "Chicago VI" and "The Very Best of Chicago".

So, the compilation album is nice, but it doesn't necessarily transport me back to my teens.

But I just got those first 3 albums in the mail on Thursday, and I immediately began playing them, and it was like the speech that James Earl Jones makes in "Field of Dreams": "The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces."

I mean, all of a sudden, I could place myself immediately in the situations that I first heard those songs, and the emotions came back, too. Typically, a sort of adolescent yearning. Like for a girl. Or sometimes a bittersweet feeling, as the image of an old friend, not seen in years, is right in my face.

And maybe a feeling of lost innocence as well. Although I know darn well I wasn't innocent as a teenager. Maybe it's the feeling of the loss of having so much of my life ahead of me. Back then, the life ahead of me seemed limitless in term of the possibilities. And when I listen to this music, I suppose I can either feel the loss of possibility, or, maybe, I can think that there are still possibilities for me that I haven't been considering.

But it's definitely later. I don't know whether I'm closer to the end of my life than the beginning, although at 52, probably closer to the end. Somewhere near the middle, I hope.

Can the music of our youth inspire us to see the future with possibilities we had not considered? Or will it lead to mere maudlin reminiscing? I think I shall choose the former.