Why Should I Care?

Why should you care?

Music induces the same reaction in your brain as the essentials for the life of our species (food, water, and sex). The response to nutrition and sex mirroring the affects of hearing music is the topic of Shankar Vedantam’s article in the Washington Post “Same Old Song, but With a Different Meaning.”

Vedantam states that wartime soldiers relate the songs they hear during battle to their experiences. This is especially important to you, the current generation of young adults in American, because you face the possibility of being sent to war.

Howard Sherpe, a Vietnam veteran, says hearing Sam Cooke’s “Another Saturday Night” awakens vivid sites of his tour as a medic in the 4^th Infantry Division.

For these soldiers, the songs represent something other than for which they were written. Sherpe says Cooke’s song represents a more complete loneliness than that of the average Joe without a date on a Saturday.

Because of the relationship between music and memory, our generation is faced with the questions: what will be the soundtrack to our war? What will the songs represent to those soldiers?

This is even more relevant as the president’s new plan calls for 21,000 more troops to be sent to an Iraq where 100 people were killed today and even more injured. Young men and women who come home will be haunted when the radio plays what used to be their favorite song.

Harvard University Neuroscientist Mark Jude Tramo says nature’s sounds make our brains more responsive to music. That is why we relate sound to experiences and why Sherpe remembers disparity when he hears Cooke’s “Another Saturday Night.”

Now we’re faced with the challenge of creating a positive soundtrack to a frightful movie. I guess that if you care then you’ll respond to hope-filled music making it the more popular choice and sending that message to the youth of our country serving overseas.