Listening To Music - Unable To Breath

On two occasions in my life, I found that, while listening to a music cut, I was unable to breathe. I was sure that I was having a heart attack, but, really, I was just overcome by the music. One definition for 'to take one's breath away' is, literally, to cause someone to be out of breathe due to shock or hard exercise; or, figuratively, to overwhelm someone with beauty or grandeur; to surprise or astound someone.  Definitely, the figurative definition is true.  However, the literal definition is also true because I was physically unable to breathe.


The first happened in February, 1969 when I was living in West Palm Beach, Florida. I was listening to a jazz station in Pompano Beach,  Florida, and the announcer came on and said that he had to apologize for what he was about to play because it was certainly not jazz. However, he said, the artist truly needed to be heard, and he felt that he had to play it on his show. What followed was 'Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye' by Roberta Flack. Soon after the music started, I found myself unable to breathe. A couple of cuts later he played 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face'.  The next day I bought Roberta's album, First Take.


I got to enjoy Roberta for a few years before she became an overnight sensation when Clint Eastwood featured 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' in his 1972 movie, Play Misty For Me.  Roberta went on to have a great career in music.


The second time it happened was in 1995.  Over a number of months, I saw the same singer on TV multiple times, a slight woman with a big voice, without finding out her name.  The first three times she was singing to young audiences so I figured she was a performer for kids.  I thought the kids were very lucky because she had an amazing voice.  The next three times I saw her she was singing to older audiences.  So I'd seen her six times and I still don't know her name.  


How can that happen?  This was a time before DVR's.  If I didn't have a specific show to watch, I sat in front of the TV with a clicker in my hand.  If the current channel didn't grab my attention within five seconds, I changed to another channel, and then another, and then another, etc.  That was how I caught this singer so many times in the middle of a song.  I missed the introductions and thus missed the name of the singer.


Then one day I was channel hopping and caught a show on PBS.  It was a show about a new CD that had just come out.  The CD was titled Tapestry Revisited, a tribute album to Carole King's Tapestry album from the early 1970's.  I listened to a couple of cuts, and there she was - and she had a name - and she started singing - and I couldn't breathe - and I was sure I was having a heart attack - again.  Celine Dion was singing (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman. Celine's career has been at the superstar level and well deserved.


I have had two heart attacks over the last ten years.  I think I prefer listening to music and being unable to breathe to an actual heart attack.