Remember Missing Persons? What are words for?? When I was a child and in elementary school, I can remember thinking that the language of music was more meaningful to me than the spoken word. What I mean by that is not to say that the spoken word, or lyrics are not important because they absolutely are in telling a story, but it was always the instrumental aspect of music that grabbed me and got my attention. I guess this is why I eventually gravitated to jazz as a dominant influence on me musically. I would listen to the Beatles and marvel in the amazing vocal harmonies and the sounds of the instruments and how it all came together. I never really paid much attention to the lyrics which may sound really strange. I would sing with the songs and know the lyrics for the most part, but it was not anything that I could tell you much about. Funny thing. There are so many songs that I can sing back the melody perfectly and know the melodies in the music but could not tell you much about the lyrics. When I was in high school, I can remember just hating reading and hating study and book work. It all had to do with how my connection to words was fragmented in some way. I could read an entire book and not know what was said because my mind was wandering and focused on music that was in my head. The only school subject as a kid that seemed to make any sense to me was math and although there is a lot of math in music, I never think of music in terms of math. It’s all about emotion and movement both physically and spiritually.