The Power of Music by Lex de Acevedo

Music is so powerful that it affects even our physical beings. Who hasn’t had the experience of tapping his toe to a certain song—without even realizing he was tapping until after the fact? Many ancient peoples recognized the power of music on the body, and some used music as a healing agent. In many mythologies, the god of music is also the god of medicine. In recent years, studies have substantiated these ancient ideas, demonstrating music’s effect on a myriad of bodily functions: pulse rate, respiration rate, blood pressure, galvanic skin responses, brain-wave impulses, muscle responses, finger coordination, and reading speed and comprehension. 1 One study suggests that certain rhythms actually have a weakening effect on the muscles of the body. 2 A force so powerful that it can influence our hearts, our glands, and our muscles is a force to be reckoned with. The influence is significant enough that we should take care what kind of music we allow into our homes. Music also has great power on our emotions. Music has been called the universal language because it speaks directly to our emotions. And our emotions and feelings influence our actions. The power music has to communicate feelings was made dramatically clear to me while I was writing the musical score for the film Where the Red Fern Grows. While working on that project, I encountered a serious problem: the entire story was built around a boy’s love for his dogs, but that love wasn’t being communicated through the film itself. I composed a tender love theme to fill that void, and suddenly flat images on strips of celluloid had emotional life. The audience wept. Music also has great effect on words. I like to use this example of a popular poem from the early 1960s: She Loves You You think you lost your love. Well, I saw her yesterday— It’s you she’s thinking of, And she told me what to say. She says she loves you, And you know that can’t be bad; Yes, she loves you, And you know you should be glad. Whoooo. She loves you, Yeah, yeah, yeah. She loves you, Yeah, yeah, yeah. 3 This text is almost humorous when read alone; it is far from award-winning poetry. Yet, when these words were set to a free-swinging, infectious tune, they created an irresistible force. Fans rushed out to buy more than three million singles of this record. How many copies of this text would have sold had it not been set to music? Usually, music gives a song its emotional power, while lyrics tie that power to a concrete idea. Generally, lyrics appeal to the head, while music captures the heart. The lyrics of “She Loves You” are rather innocuous, but the situation becomes serious when questionable or immoral words are wedded to an appealing melody. This was never clearer to me than when I was hired to make an instrumental version of another popular song. I didn’t care much for the tune and cared even less for the words. In order to take the melody and harmony off the record, though, I had to play it at least a dozen times. Even though I was making an instrumental version and wasn’t interested in the words at all, I couldn’t get the melody or the words out of my mind for days afterward. Hard-to-remember words stick in the mind easily when combined with catchy, easy-to-remember melodies. That song kept returning to haunt me. Ironically, I didn’t even like the song. What if I had liked it? Music is the sugar coating that makes “bitter” lyrics palatable. We may become so infatuated with the rhythm, melody, or singer of a song that we transfer this emotion to the words, not caring what they really say. Even if the words are drug-oriented, erotic, violent, satanic, or just plain silly—when tied to a “hit” tune, they sneak past the screening mechanism of the brain to be stored in the subconscious, and to affect the listener accordingly. And that’s one of the real problems with popular music today, one that adds to the confusion in discussing it. It comes down to a lack of control: We can’t control the lyrics attached to memorable music. We can’t control what the music and lyrics do to us. And much of the time we can’t even control what we listen to. For example, most radio stations—rock, pop, country, whatever—generally broadcast music indiscriminately. A moral song will be followed by a song about sex or violence, and unless we are constantly at the radio dial, we listen to both. Record albums often have a similar mix; we could skip the objectionable songs, but that’s often too much trouble.

A Closer Look at Popular Music By Lex de Azevedo

It was one of those no-win situations. I’d been asked to speak at a stake fireside on the subject of pop music and morality, a highly sensitive topic at best. Unfortunately, the previous evening a member of the stake presidency had closed down the stake youth dance. In his judgment, the music and the youth had gotten out of hand.

I could feel the emotional intensity in the air as the young people filed in to sit on one side of the chapel and the adults sat on the other. No one wanted to hear a lecture; they wanted to air their thoughts about last night’s dance. I was bombarded by questions and comments from both sides:

“I’m sure the Lord is displeased when our youth dance to that loud, vulgar music in his own house.”

“You think it’s loud and vulgar because you don’t like it. Your parents probably thought your music was loud and vulgar.”

“Why don’t you kids learn to appreciate real music—classical music—instead of idolizing those immoral rock stars?”

“You think rock singers are immoral? Did you ever read about Wagner or Lizst?”

“But that’s different. Their music is beautiful and uplifting. It is good.”

“Boring might be a better word for it!”

One elderly brother stood to settle the whole matter. “I can’t always make out the words, but whenever I hear the sound of that electric geetar I know they’re singing about dope!” And with that he dropped back into his seat as if he had solved every issue.

A few nodded in agreement. Others snickered or laughed out loud. I was tempted to chuckle myself until I realized that he had made the most profound comment of the evening. He was literally right. To him, every song with an electric “gee-tar” was associated with dope. In his mind and memory, the electric “gee-tar” and dope were inextricably connected.

In each of our minds, certain kinds of music are tied deeply to our own experiences and emotions. Our favorite music has an intensely personal meaning to us. Memories of our childhood, first date, first love, youth conferences, prom night, testimony meetings, marriage, and old friends may all be tied to a certain kind of music in one way or another. Thus, when someone attacks our music, we may feel that they are also attacking our deepest, most treasured experiences.

Because our response to music is so intensely personal, it is difficult to be objective when discussing music and morality. Most discussions, in fact, fail to focus on the moral issues at all. Instead, they quickly degenerate into arguments about individual tastes in which we ascribe moral qualities to those things we like. In short, that which we like we call “good,” and that which we don’t like we call “bad.”

Parents and leaders of youth would do well not to point the finger at broad categories, such as “hard rock,” “pop,” or “country and western” for two reasons: (1) Categories are vague and mean different things to different people. (2) To discuss categories is to miss the entire point. Moral and immoral songs exist in nearly every kind of music, and attacking a specific category may lead a person to feel justified in listening to immoral music of another type.

For those confused by the issues involved in any discussion about music and morality, let me assure you that there is a way out of the confusion. It is possible to understand music’s incredible power, consider the moral issues raised by that power, and then look at the music of today in light of its moral consequences.

I’m not one to quickly condemn the music of our day. Popular music is my profession, and it’s one of the greatest enjoyments of my life. I come from a long history of involvement in popular music. My mother, Alyce King, was one of the four singing King Sisters. I began my musical training early. While I was in college I traveled with the King Sisters as their arranger and accompanist. Later I worked as the musical director for the Four Preps. In 1965 I began work with Capitol Records as a record producer. A few years later I was hired as an arranger and rehearsal pianist for The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour on CBS television. In the seventies I created the music for Saturday’s Warrior, The Order Is Love, and My Turn on Earth.

Throughout all these years in the music business, I’ve learned that music has great power, both for good and for evil. And I’ve become increasingly concerned that that power is being used for evil in much of today’s popular music.