What Good Music Does to a Person

Music, like many arts, is a combination of human communication and emotion that has played a pivotal role in human evolution and culture. However, there's something about music that bring about rapid change within a human being, almost like a metamorphosis: songs with scare chords automatically trigger primal fears, while sad songs can ironically improve negative moods. But what I've found is something special happens when you hear a song that will become your favorite. Impulses are triggered, habits are interrupted or outright changed, even the entire focus of one's tastes can change in the space of three to five (or twenty maximum for some European bands) minutes.

For the Sake of Example, I will be using Wake  Me Up by Avicii. feel free to substitute it with any song you personally like. (But since this video inspired this entire segment I feel obligated to point out what a beautiful metaphor the tattoos are for nearly every marginalized group ever without ever going into specifics.)

So without further ado, let's get started:

Change #1. Said Song will inspire immediate action of some sort.

This is especially true for upbeat songs,but otherwise span nearly every genre from classical to dubstep.

If the song is a dance number, your first instinct is to dance in time to it. If it's a love song it will inspire ideas for dates/courting/fanfic writing. If it's a song of self-realization (featured above) it will inspire either self-reflection or a long midnight drive with no real destination. The list goes on; but otherwise this goes unnoticed until the individual has unlimited access to the song via Youtube, itunes, hard copy cd/records or a team of minstrels

Change #2: You will listen to it almost religiously for awhile.

Admit it: you're singing along perfectly to whatever favorite song you picked to listen to while reading this, right? Well by the time you finish listening to that song repeatedly within the first week of discovering it you should be able to sing along to it and recognize it by the first half note from what I've seen. We make up a lot of excuses for it: We want to know the lyrics, we want some background noise, we're synchronizing the song to a montage of pickles, the list goes on.

In modern times, with the advent of the internet and many variations of musical style, some fans will take a variation where they listen to the same song in many different forms. These often include:

Gender-swapped:

8-Bit:

AMV and/or PMV:

Acoustic version: (if the song was not acoustic already):

Weird, Fake-piano version:

Heavy Metal remix:

Audiosurf version:

And of course the eloquent format of  Mario Paint:

And by now you've all likely picked one or scrolled passed them all, thus we continue onto our next point of change.

Change #3: You will learn to sing/preform that song if you have any musical talent.

Like I said in the opening paragraph, music is a form of expression and, like many other forms of expression, people generally shamelessly quote it as a form of emotional or verbal communications. George RR Martin does this in his Song of Ice and Fire books well; using songs such as The Bear and the Maiden Fair, The False and the Fair, and particularly The Rains of Castermere, as forms of foreshadowing and even as part of the setting itself. For a real-world example I present one final video: I apologize to any of my readers who now hate this song, but as I will be discussing it below, I recommend you watch at least this one video: 

Look at how much emotion and force this guy is putting into this cover: with every note he adds another minor gesture or expression that builds to the last draw of the bow. He isn't just playing the song: he's feeling it.

So what does this mean for musicians who play covers? My hypothesis is this: the more you like a song, the better you will sound when you preform it regardless of baseline talent level. Which brings me to my last point...

Change #4: You will Judge other songs based on that song/
Everyone likes comparing and contrasting things; after all, even people who have never heard Avicii before this post can agree that it outperforms several songs that came before it or will come after.

But if you really like a song, enough to listen to it a thousand times and learn a new instrument just to play it in public for money, it will work to influence future tastes in music. For example, why do I like Wake Me Up? Probably because it sounds a little bit like what my father would have listened to when he'd take my family on interstate road trips; and in turn future songs that sound like Wake Me Up in some other respects will spark my interest just as quickly as it did. It's almost like musical telephone, where one's style develops over a growing playlist and every rising bridge raises your standard of musical tastes.
So all told, if you hear a song on the radio that makes you want to do stuff and listen to seven different ways, you may be on the cusp of a musical revolution.