I remember reading three William Shakespeare plays during my junior high and high school years, Romeo And Juliet, The Tempest, and The Tragedy Of Julius Caesar. As the years have gone on, I’ve managed to retain an idea of the overall plots of these, but the finer details have certainly gotten more and more fuzzy. Because of music, however, there is one detail in The Tragedy Of Julius Caesar that I will continue to remember for as long as my mind stays right. A soothsayer manages to catch Caesar’s attention as he makes his way through a crowd and warns him, “beware the ides of March.”
Song: “Vehicle”
Artist: The Ides Of March
Songwriter(s): Jim Peterik
Album(s): Vehicle (Single) / Vehicle (Full-length)
Release Year(s): 1970
Song: “Try Again”
Artist: Aaliyah
Songwriter(s): Timothy Mosley, Stephen Garrett
Album(s): Try Again (Single) / Romeo Must Die – The Album (Full-length)
Release Year(s): 2000
I Wish You Would Hear Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6jFrq03xPtVVOexYHZF1OW?si=bc9df95d2d854d
(From “Whitfield – Music: Its Expressive Power and Moral Significance) ~ Theorists of the medieval period, drawing from Greek philosophy, acknowledged that music directly corresponds to human nature. The philosopher Boethius dealt amply with music as a character-forming device. Boethius acknowledged that each mode had the ability to charm the human spirit and inspire particular emotions. The essence of this influence lay in the ability of music to confer unity and harmony to the human soul. Boethius concluded, “Music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it even if we so desired.”