Musical Theme of my Life

As I stepped off my work building today, I switched on the mp3 player on my cellphone to listen to my music. The random shuffle program chose to play “Nyah” by Hans Zimmer; it is a track from the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack album. There are two versions of the song; the one on my cellphone is the album version (not the movie version) and it includes string instruments and vocals.

As I listened to the music through my headphones, I couldn’t help but experience a surge of upliftment, transcendence, pride, awe, and a sense of lightness. After a tiring 9-hour day at work, I didn’t think I had the energy in me to experience anything of the sort. The fast-paced rhythm, the soaring beats, the sharp sounds of the flamenco guitar were so emotionally stirring; I visualized the long, frilled, flowing dress of a flamenco dancer–rhythmically, rapidly, passionately, proudly stomping her feet, dancing to the beat; colors of deep red and amber flashing across my vision; I felt like I was experiencing the music through my entire body, not just merely listening to it with my ears.

If I were to select a musical piece as the “song of my life” or the musical theme of my life, then this would have to be it. Ever since I first heard only a fraction of this piece in the movie–they don’t play the entire song in the movie–I was instantly hooked onto its sound. This musical piece was in fact the first thing I offered to my ex-boyfriend more than 5 years ago as an example of what I like in music. If Objectivism is my consciously chosen philosophy of life, this song is the representation of my emotional and subconscious sense of life.

Hans Zimmer, the composer of this piece, won an Academy Award for his other great musical composition for The Lion King. He has also written the score for other movies like Gladiator, Rain Man, Pearl Harbor, etc. I admire and enjoy his compositions more than any other film music composers, by far.