I close my eyes and open my vocal chords, letting Billy’s beautiful blues lead the way. The goosebumps are resurfacing as I’m writing this almost two months later – leaving a trace of that Zen. The camp’s program director hits play, and a warm fuzzy feeling comes over me as I look down the line of my CITs and fellow camp counselors.Īs the soft, echoing piano trills open the song, we patiently wait for the lyrics to take us away on our Summer Camp Anthem, swaying left and right – a human metronome – to the hi-hat: “Slow down you crazy child / you’re so ambitious for a juvenile / but then if you’re so smart, tell me why you’re still so afraid?” At the end of the three-week program, the CITs “graduate” to become camp counselors, interlocking arms, singing and swaying in front of the rest of the campers, initiated by a song that represents their collective experience – Vienna, by the one and only Billy Joel. This moment of Zen that I had at the concert was a nice breath of fresh air.īut if I felt stressed, the Counselors-in-Training I was responsible for were thrown in headfirst during their training, swimming in teenage angst. While an incredible opportunity, being a camp counselor comes along with ample stressors and a turbulent 24/7 work schedule. I relished in the eternal – as John Riker, a philosophy professor at Colorado College, would say – for only a few minutes, but the transportation to that state of mind was one much different than the one I was in as a summer camp counselor earlier that day.Ĭamp Cory sits right along the water on one of Upstate New York’s Finger Lakes. An immense peace came over me during one of these soul-melting guitar monologues my mind went blank, it felt as if I could feel my blood harmoniously circulating through my body. That warm summer night with the rain falling lightly on the downward-sloped lawn of the concert, I will never forget the pure ecstatic bliss I felt. Although Derek Trucks blows my mind with his ground-shaking solos, it is his ability to gracefully cry through his guitar that melts my soul. I was lucky enough to see them live over the summer, and it was everything I had anticipated and more. I discussed one of my favorite Spotify fixes last week, the Tedeschi Trucks Band. My name is Jonathan Cox and I am a sophomore with a Spotify addiction. Let me apologize for my lack of polite small talk in my first piece, how rude of me not to introduce myself. Greetings, dear readers, to the second edition of my Music Column! I’m glad you’re here to think about music and its meanings with me.

Words to vienna waits for you