How Rock Music Shaped My Mind and My Worldview

“…If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.” — Jimi Hendrix

There are moments in life that slip past unnoticed at the time, yet end up shaping entire decades that follow. Funny thing is, they rarely announce themselves. They arrive quietly, disguised as something ordinary.

For me, it was a song in an indoor pool.

Where It All Began

It was 1977. I was nine years old, waterlogged and happy, swimming at the YMCA with my friend Brad. The lifeguard had a radio perched on a folding chair, and the sound bounced across the tile room with that unmistakable 70’s radio echo.

Then it happened.

The opening of Come Sail Away by Styx drifted across the pool.

And something inside me stopped.Or maybe something inside me started.

Either way, I was hooked instantly—caught by the voice, the piano, the mystery. A kid doesn’t always know why something moves him, he just knows that it does.

A few days later, I scraped together $10, begged my mom for a ride to Musicland at the Muscatine Mall, and walked out holding my very first album: The Grand Illusion.

Looking back, that title wasn’t just clever marketing.It was foreshadowing.

That simple moment set the trajectory for the next fifteen years of my life.

By my late teens, I owned more than 200 albums and tapes. Nearly every dollar I made ended up in the register at Musicland—though I still maintain the company’s eventual collapse was not my fault.

I was impressionable, curious, hungry to understand the world.And rock stars—well, they seemed to be the ones who had life figured out. They looked free. Uninhibited. Larger than life. They seemed like the real leaders of the free world.

And I wanted that life.

Monday nights at 10:30, I sat glued to Rock Line with Bob Coburn. Bands played live in-studio. They previewed new songs. They told stories that wrapped around my imagination like electric vines.

Sammy Hagar taught me “responsible driving. ”David Lee Roth taught me “how to treat women. ”Pat Benatar taught me exactly what happens if anyone tries treating her like that.

Let’s just say… my education was eclectic.(Sarcasm fully intended.)

“Music is the universal language of mankind.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

My Warped Worldview

Hours upon hours of music eventually did what all repeated messages do:they moved from entertainment to identity.

I wasn’t just listening to rock music; I was absorbing a worldview.

The lyrics printed inside those album covers became my scripture.My Sony Walkman became my sanctuary.The concert stage became my place of worship.

Night after night, I lay in bed with headphones on, letting guitar riffs, drum rollovers, and soaring choruses drown out everything else.

In high school, I installed a quadraphonic stereo in my car. Surround sound before anyone my age even knew what surround sound was.I wasn’t listening to music—I was entering another reality.

And live albums? Those were spiritual experiences.The roar of the crowd… the energy… the illusion that I was standing right there onstage with the band.

Music became my escape, my teacher, my identity.And like all powerful teachers, it was shaping me whether I realized it or not.

There’s a reason vinyl is making a comeback—they don’t transport you to a song; they transport you to a world.

Music taps something deep and emotional. If you listen long enough, you begin to feel what the artist feels. Their story becomes your story.

And I let it.

“Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends.” — Alphonse de Lamartine

Guidance and Direction… Sort Of

Rock didn’t just entertain me—it discipled me.

During the most formative, fragile years of my adolescence, when I was searching for meaning, direction, identity, and something to anchor myself to, music stepped forward and gladly filled the void.

It offered up a set of “life principles” that sounded good, felt good, and seemed true enough if I didn’t look too closely:

• Life is short—have fun while you can.

• Don’t let anyone tell you how to live.

• Feeling down? Sex will fix it.

• If you let me down, I’m out of here.

• If it feels right, it can’t be wrong.

• Beauty and wealth determine your value.

• Freedom matters more than responsibility.

• Love stinks. Life sucks.

• Everything worth having is in the chase.

• You’re invincible. Live free or die trying.

• When life gets hard, run somewhere else.

• If we have love, that’s all we need.

These ideas weren’t true. But they were seductive.They justified the life I wanted to live.They gave me permission to follow impulse over integrity, pleasure over purpose, freedom over responsibility.

Ideas have consequences.And the ideas I was inhaling weren’t building me—they were hollowing me out. It’s easy to buy into a rockstar worldview. It’s intoxicating… especially when you’re young.

My Shelter From the Pain

Music became my hiding place.My emotional shelter.My quiet addiction.

But no matter how many albums I bought, the restlessness inside me never went away.

I longed for a deep connection—with something or someone. Something real. Something stable. Something that didn’t disappear when the track ended.

Music let me feel connected without requiring anything from me.Rock stars couldn’t judge me, reject me, or expect anything of me.It was a one-way relationship: emotion in, accountability out. But it was hollow.It pointed me in the wrong direction.And it left me emptier each year.

Something Flawed

By 1991, after years of chasing illusions and paying the price for my own decisions, I finally saw the truth:

The worldview I had built my life around wasn’t working.

The “mentors” I had adopted—my imagined sages—were not leading me toward life. They were leading me toward constant disappointment.

I had reached the end of myself.My heart was heavy.My illusions were cracking.And something inside me whispered,

“This isn’t it. Something has to change.”

And I knew the change had to start with me.

Letting Go

I surrendered my life to Christ.

I traded album lyrics for Scripture—illusion for truth.I threw almost all my albums into a dumpster.

Not because every song was evil…but because my heart had turned music into an idol.

Music had taken a place in my life that only my Creator was meant to fill.

I needed a reset.A new foundation.A worldview that didn’t crumble the moment life got hard.

I was born again.And everything began to change.

Changed Forever

Music no longer shapes my worldview.

I still enjoy music—sometimes Christian, sometimes secular—but none of it defines me anymore. None of it fills a void. None of it tells me who I am.

Even good music—even worship music—can become an idol if we let it.Anything that becomes central in the place of God becomes dangerous.

Today, you might still catch me singing a classic hit in the car.But the hold is gone.I listen from the outside now, not the inside.

Like visiting an old friend I appreciate…but no longer depend on.

I’m more discerning.More grounded.More free.

And the void that once drove me to drown myself in music?It isn’t there anymore.

Joel Smith

Joel Smith Coaching

319-930-1045

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