I've always loved music and I often marvel at how certain songs become attached to a random moment or place in time — even the mundane moments that have no reason to be memorable. Today's tune, Robert Plant's "I Believe" (which could also fit day 14 — a song some might be surprised that I love), is one of those songs. Whenever I hear its plaintive melodies, I always remember a specific moment when I heard it on the radio in 1993. I was driving home from college (Ole Miss) at the end of a semester after taking my last exam, packing up and hitting the road to Corinth. I was on the twisty snake known as Mississippi Highway 30, somewhere in the edge of or a little east of the Holly Springs National Forest, where the two-lane highway bobs and weaves amongst kudzu-covered northeast Mississippi hills. And the image that's attached is the setting sun beaming through the trees as Plant elegizes his lost son, who died as a young child. "I Believe" has a hypnotic, dreamy quality that sticks with the soul, and the pain that birthed this beauty is evident:
Big fire, on top of the hill A worthless gesture, and last farewell Tears from your Mother, from the pits of her soul Look at your Father, see his blood run cold Like the wind, you are free Just a whisper, I hear you, so talk to me
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