Dashboard

This is my second attempt at this post, I wrote it out a few days ago and then when I went to publish it, the computer ate my homework! Usually Blogger is pretty good about saving the work as a draft, but no such luck this time. Ah well, maybe it happened for a reason.

The other day when I was on the treadmill, with my mp3 turned up nice and loud to distract me from the fact that I really don't like exercise, one of my favorite songs came on. It's such a good song that it makes me walk a little faster, just to keep up with the beat. I always feel lucky when a great tune comes up on the random play setting, it's like a little bonus, or it seems that way, anyhow.

As I was listening to the lyrics of the song I had an "a-ha!" moment and I heard them in a different way than I had before. Taken literally, Modest Mouse is singing about their dashboard being melted (like back in the 80s, when your dashboard would crack from being in the sun??) But, no matter.... they still had the radio. The song goes on with a similar theme... "the car was on blocks, but I was already where I want" to be etc, etc etc. The tune is so catchy I had never really thought about the lyrics. Maybe it was all the blood circulating faster than usual and therefore giving my brain a bit more juice, who knows, but all of a sudden I heard the lyrics saying that they were looking at the glass half full, rather than half empty. Sure, the dashboard might have melted, but hey, the radio is working!!! Talk about being grateful for the small things. The realization made me smile.

I'm terrible at interpreting poetry and I suppose music falls into that category as well. I tend to take things very literally so making this connection (which probably would have been obvious to most everyone else) made me happy. Sure, I hate to exercise, but I did get to listen to a great song, and be reminded to see things in a positive light. Thanks Modest Mouse!