Wish You Were Here

Music has the ability to help me remember things or recall memories, feelings, sensory images. It gets in my soul and by simply listening to a piece of music I can be transformed, greatly affected. I have a very eclectic taste in music and whatever the genre may be I instantly connect to the artist as their commentary plays out melodically to my ears. Whereas every piece of music triggers a thought there are specific works that I have heard over the course of my life that have become very important to me. So much so that by merely hearing them they can take me to a new emotional state. One such song is Wish You Were Here by Incubus.
In my junior year in college I was in the middle of rehearsals for King Henry the IV part I. I was driving to an early morning class after having been up very late rehearsing. I was half asleep almost on auto pilot and the song Wish You Were Here began to play on my car’s CD player.
I received a call on my cell phone that my Grandfather was in the hospital in critical condition from pneumonia. It was very unexpected. I raced there to be by his side like he had for me so many times before. He passed away three days later. Amidst all my grief I still had thousands of lines of iambic pentameter to memorize. At that moment that song became something so much more to me than a Top 40 hit. It became a tribute to my relationship with my Grandfather. He never knew the song but it helped me to deal with my grief, and it inspired me to press on with my performance. When I graduated college, the first in that family to do so and something my Grandfather supported, I actually thought of that song. I knew that day when he left this world that he was a part of me and though I may wish that he “were here” in the physical sense that his memory would be with me always.

If you like alternative music I recommend the album "Morning View" by Incubus it is a great body of work.