Life Before - Music Blog 1
Updated: Apr 10
Life and Music - Brian Dalton
"Life Before" is one of my earliest tracks. It also happens to be one of my favorites, up to this day. As a composition, it is not very difficult, but I really think this chord blending is quite beautiful. Musically, it's very laid back easy going . . . and this was intentional. One day I was pondering how healthy and happy Mother Earth may have been prior to humanity getting involved in her business. This led to a number of thoughts:
Plastic pollution - Nope. That's one of our greatest hits.
Decimated oceans - Nope. We're responsible for that.
Bombs going off everywhere blowing each other up - Umm . . . nope; that's us, too.
Climate change - Hmm . . . nope, that's another of our wondrous creations.
Megalomaniacs - No again . . . those are all human, ego-fragile individuals intent on destruction.
. . . this could go on quite some time, but you get the idea of my inspiration. Earth must have been absolutely vibrant and so much healthier without us. It sounds awful to say, but it's true and we all know it. As a species we love to do things without truly thinking about implications. Paraphrasing a line from Jurassic Park: "We were so preoccupied with whether or not we could, that we didn't stop to think about if we should?"
In fact, in a recent New York Times opinion piece by Todd May, the suggestion is proposed, which suggests humanity may lead to its own extinction.
As a professor of philosophy at Clemson University, May states that humans are destroying the environment (shocker) and are a “source of devastation of the lives of conscious animals on a scale that is difficult to comprehend.”
Now, he does recognize our species boundless talent to create art and literature; to chase and capture scientific endeavors, he postulates our capacity to alter the one planet given to us, which will lead to our own downfall.
Essentially, as a species, we might want to wake up and realize that this is our one shot. This thing called "life" is not a sitcom; there is no rerun option (at least not in this realm of existence). I believe our younger generation is waking up to this notion and offers us a glimmer of hope. The best thing we can do is to provide them the latitude and resources needed to right this ship NOW!
So, this thought process (and opinion piece by Todd May) led me to creating a song that simply felt peaceful and more importantly . . . at peace.
Video - Life Before
Musical Score - Life Before
Album
"Life Before" can be found on my instrumental album, IV.