Music plays a big part in my life. Of course, it plays such a large part in any teenager’s life, but everyone always tells me I’m different when it comes to music. Like I wrote before, I believe that everybody has a story to tell, and albums tell some of the most beautiful stories I can think of. Each record I own has a story, whether it is in the songs themselves, or in the way the record was made.

Every time I put a record on, I don’t have to listen to any type of nonsense others are trying to tell me. My music drowns out any sort of bigoted political debates, moronic arguments, false accusations, and it replaces those discussions with philosophies and life stories.

I don’t care for people spouting off loads of crap that they regurgitated off of channels like Fox or MSNBC. People who argue for argument’s sake, really sicken me, and those people are who populate news channels today. Life should be focused on relationships between people who mean the most to us, not debating who is right or wrong on a topic that won’t mean anything months from now. Music is the opposite of media, because artists realize that people should have a higher priority over politics.

Not the other way around.

That’s why music plays such a big part in my life, it’s one of the places where I get my values that I live my life by. People like Win Butler, Julian Casablancas, Frank Black, Jack White, Dave Grohl. These people are some of the most influential people I know of, because they have the ability to craft some of the best stories I’ve ever listened to. Whether it’s the heart breaking theatrics about growing up, of Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs,” or the hard blues rock riffs about becoming independent from The White Stripes “Black Math,” songs like these touch and inspire my writing in ways that other mediums can’t.

These songs tell stories of real people. These stories are of flawed, problematic, but very, very real people and I value these stories much more than of the romantically picturesque images, painted by love drunk singers, wishing for stable relationships with their lovers. Nothing in this life is perfect, but romance songs, movies, and more mediums try to convince us otherwise. They try to convince us that if we look hard enough, we will find that one perfect man or one perfect woman, when they don’t exist. The fact of the matter is that nobody is perfect, but real love is finding that other person, who loves you regardless of your flaws. We all will stumble trying to find that person, we all will make mistakes in life, but if we give it enough time, and if we look hard enough, all of our mistakes could be worth it.

These songs transport me to different worlds where nothing matters but the music. It doesn’t matter what type of past anyone has, we can all appreciate music for the poetry that it is. Messages are written in the poems, messages of hope for better times, messages to help you get over break ups, messages to make you feel on top of the world. Even messages to help you mourn for others. Any time I wanted, I can just put on a record and it helps me feel a little less depressed than usual.