Music is the doctor of my soul

The title of this week's column is a great line from the Doobie Brothers hit, "The Doctor" and it really captures the spirit of so many of us. All of us grew up with music in our souls, whether it was the big band music of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra from my parent's era, Elvis Presley, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and Marvin Gaye from my era, disco music from the '70s or hip-hop and rap from the current generation, music touches us all.

There was a study done recently that showed that we are most partial to the music that we grew up with and that shouldn't be a shock to anyone. The music we were listening to when we were young defined who we were, our relationships, our love interests and everything else about us that meant anything, at least to us.

A friend of mine, Steve Batty, has been posting a song a day on Facebook for the past several weeks, telling about how that song brought back special memories to him while he was in junior high all the way up through his college years and we can all relate to that. A fellow football player and I used to go down to a taco joint in Fayetteville, Arkansas, order six tacos apiece and listen to the The Spencer Davis Group rendition of "Gimme Some Lovin'" every day as we ate those tacos. It remains one of my favorite songs.

Later on in life, when John Kugler, Pete Smith and I were chummin' around with each other, one of our favorite songs was "The Boys Are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy and that song still brings back those memories whenever I hear it.

Regardless of who you are or when you grew up, we all have our favorite songs.

I'm writing this column on Tuesday night because on Wednesday, two days before this is published, I'm treating my entire family to a concert in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Fleetwood Mac, one of the signature groups from the late '70s and the early '80s who changed the face and the sound of music for generations to come and whose album, "Rumours," remains one of the best selling albums of all time.

I will be met in Tulsa by my ex-wife Linda, my son Michael and his wife Nicki, and my daughter-in-law Erica for an afternoon at Embassy Suites and then the concert itself at the BOK Center. Unfortunately, my youngest son, Will, who has been to over three hundred concerts in the past three years was sent out of town by his employer so we're all going to be together except for him, the biggest concert-goer of us all.

My favorite song from Fleetwood Mac is "Go Your Own Way" from their classic Rumours album because not only is the music absolutely awesome, the message of the title of the song was not lost on me either.

I know we're all busy doing the things we have to do on a daily basis but, wherever I go, I hear music playing and it's almost always the music that the people who are playing it can relate to the most. Whenever we're happy, sad, downcast, celebrating a new love or pining about a lost one, music soothes the savage beast and heals our heart, at least for a little while,

We would be adrift in a meaningless world without a paddle if it wasn't for our songs that remind us of the joys of yesterday and the hopes of tomorrow.