Moments: Don't Stop Believing

It all started with this. From the time I saw the first episode of Glee, I started identifying "moments" all around me. In music, in film; they were everywhere, but they weren't common. In those moments, the magic happens, space is thin, and everything is in perfect alignment.

For this to happen in music, it requires more than just instrumental and melodic perfection. It requires that everyone from the bass player to the triangle player be caught up in what they are creating. It requires that the singer not just hit the note, but feel the note, from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head; for everything in the singer's life and experience to be honed to a perfect focus in this one instant.

For this one moment, the singer and the drummer and the band and the audience truly believe.

I've always known these moments exist, but until I heard this rendition of this song, I didn't have a term for them. For me, this moment occurs 0:40 seconds in, when Rachel sings "they took the midnight train going anywhere". But it's not really the line, it's the word "midnight", and more specifically, it's the instant she mouths the M. In the show, you can see it on her face. In the music, you can hear it. For whatever reason, she believed. She believed in that train, in those people, in their relentless pursuit in the night.