The Marvelous Musical Mansion

We used to watch this movie, my sisters and I.  It was called "Wee Sing Presents The Marvelous Musical Mansion."  It was about these three kids who go with their eccentric aunt to a (wait for it) marvelous musical mansion.  It was, quite possibly, the most embarrassing movie that ever made the nineties ridiculous.  And yet, for some utterly incomprehensible reason, we loved it.  I mean, it ranked right up there with The Swan Princess and Homeward Bound (which is really saying something, because it's pretty hard to beat cartoon princess musicals and sarcastic cats).  Anyway, throughout the whole movie there was this sort of undercurrent of wonder and magic, as though music was more than just music, but perhaps something a good deal more powerful and important.  They make music out as magic.

And I think Wee Sing may have been on to something.  Definitely not the fashion choices, but the whole music-is-almost-magic thing.  There really is something magical about listening to music.  And I'm not talking about the songs on the radio, nor am I talking about lyrics.  There's something magical about music itself.  As cheesy as it sounds, it has to do with the way that music can just completely change where you are and how you feel.  I can't help feeling that perhaps music means more than we let it mean - maybe it really is marvelous and almost magical.

While I was at Bethel, sometimes I'd be listening to a particularly good song, and I'd want to rip out my ear-buds and turn up the music so that everyone nearby could listen.  I never did, of course, but I always wanted to.  For some songs, it isn't enough to have just one person listening.  It seems selfish, you know?  I just want everyone else to hear this song because it's so wonderful and beautiful and perfect.  For just a moment, I was almost absolutely convinced that perhaps this song was the solution, was magic, was what would bring all the hunched figures nearby to life.

Writing it out, it seems silly, I guess, but maybe it's true.  Maybe the right song at the right moment with the right people really is magic.  Sometimes I think that all I really want for Christmas is a soundtrack to my life. And then I can force everyone else to listen to the magic.