"Call on Me"-An ode to the disaffected

When I was at the gym this morning finishing up my routine, a song hit my pandora that I had not heard in years and gave me an opportunity for reflection of a not so distant past that I felt the need to share with all of you.

To give you some contextual basis, I grew up and spent the majority of my adolescence and young adult life deeply ingrained and embedded in the underground rave and EDM music subculture. It was my church and my religion, and like any good parishioner I paid my due tiding. It became part of my identity. It's who I was. Back then i was still so naive and such a hapless idealist. I had yet to have the world get to me like it has now. I actually believed that I was part of a positive force for good that transcended boundaries and made me greater than myself. The culture also gave a welcome forum to the many grievances of my generation against what we perceived as a draconian establishment model that had abandoned us to fend for ourselves.

I suppose just like anyone, there are certain songs that ultimately came to define a specific time period of my life with remarkable clarity. Don't all of us have songs like that in our life? That specific track that every time you hear it again it seems to whisk you away back to that time period in your life, if only for a moment. Music has this uncanny knack, does it not? In the context of my life as a raver, it was combining two deeply emotional variables that quickly began to take on a life all their own. The first emotional variable was the music itself, with it's obvious spiritual connection and the catharsis that comes along with it. The second being the dopamine and serotonin reactors in my brain, which were in a nearly constant state of flux due to regular doses of molly back then. A better formula for a an epiphany would be difficult to devise.

"Call on me" is not the type of track you would figure to be a game changer or an instrument of a revolution in thought. When the track first stared making it's rounds in raves and nightclubs it was just sort of a "so what?" kind of track to be honest. It came off of an EP release from the powerhouse Swedish producer and DJ, Eric Prydz (still largely known as Pryda back in those days). It was heavily sampled, heavy on the baseline, and even heavier on the melodrama when it was performed live by Mr. Prydz. Eric Prydz was largely viewed back then, and you could argue still is today, as EDM music for "grown ups". The kind of music that would be right at home in it's more natural habitat among the dance floors of the EDM scene, but would also not seem horribly out of place on one of your Mom's driving playlists either. It was this kind of versatility that would ultimately make Mr. Prydz a very wealthy man and make tickets to shows he headlined harder to come by than even Tiesto gigs, but also a reason for widespread condemnation against the music amongst us purists. It was viewed and over produced, chessily composed, anthem style EDM for the masses. This certianly was not up to the standards of us wanna be sophisticated types who are so obviously above such silly and hastily composed tracks, right? Wrong...For better or for worse we swallowed it hook line and sinker.

What began as an obscure track from a mainstream DJ on a throwaway EP release nobody cared about began to plant a seed that would come to define a movement and a snapshot in time for an entire generation of us who felt we had been cast aside by an increasingly cynical and judgmental world. So why this particular track at that particular time? Who knows. Still to this day I am not exactly sure how it happened, I just know it did. You would of had to of been there at that time to really understand it I guess. "Call on Me" became sort of an unspoken battle cry and fight song among us ravers, and the nuance and overtones were so thick you could cut them with a Katana blade. It's hard to really explain in a manner that outsiders detached from the movement would understand, but the track came to symbolize a unity in our cause and purpose. That we would always have each others back no matter what, and that we were unified by a bond that was thicker than blood to expose the treachery of "polite society". It was a truly amazing time of self discovery in my life, and a truly amazing journey that part of me is still on to this day. It had a type of kinship and camaraderie that I had never known previously, and that frankly I did not experience again until much later when MFP came into the fold.

Right now, as of this moment through my MFP community, is the only time in my life I have ever felt so connected and unified in purpose as I did back then. After the dance and rave movement began to wain in the later years of the 2000's, I became convinced that our cause was a lost one. I gave up. The bad guys had won. It would take a journey of a different sort to once again awaken me to the magic of human potential and propensity for positive change. I have all of you to thank for that in more ways than I could possibly express gratitude for.

So I will post a link to the track itself below. Like most all songs from Eric Prydz these days, it has been remixed to death and comes in so many variations that I have lost track. But below is the original EP dub that all of us originally heard back then. Hearing it this morning again after all this time brought to light a serious nostalgia trip to a time in my life where I saw myself and everyone around me as instruments for change. It also reminded me that while one door closed for me back then another one opened in MFP to take it's place. Hope you have a great Saturday all, and if you bothered reading all of this, thanks for taking the time to learn a little bit more about me and what makes me tick. At the end of the day, we are all striving for acceptance more than anything else, including self acceptance. May you find yours. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_F6rkdWY5Y