You know how sometimes you hear a tune, when you’re a kid maybe. And you don’t know what it is and it doesn’t mean anything to you, but it gets lodged in the back of your brain?

You don’t know who it’s by or what’s it called, but sometimes when you close your eyes you can hear its echoes playing inside your head. It’s sitting there, nameless and orphaned and alone, a piece of a tune you’ve always known and couldn’t place, like an itch in the middle of your back.

And then one day you put on a new CD you bought, or a track comes on the radio, and it hits you. This is IT. The music finds a name and the song finds a home and there’s this huge catharsis that feels like a chunk of your life is now so amazingly more together than it was. It’s a wonderful feeling, a great relief.

I had this moment a few years ago, with Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me To The End Of Love”. I’ve heard it happen to someone else with the exact same tune.

Yesterday I got to be on the administering end. Played someone a tune and watched the look of  incredulous surprise and wonderment. It was extremely gratifying. Like a removing a thorn from a lion’s paw.

The song, by the way, was Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra’s “Some Velvet Morning”. Fitting.