Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring

The words of Frank Zappa — “Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.” — strike at the very essence of existence. He speaks not merely of music, but of beauty itself, of the colors and rhythms that give meaning to the passing of days. For without adornment, time is a taskmaster, reducing life to schedules, debts, and obligations. But when decorated by art, by sound, by the divine breath of music, time is no longer a chain but a dance.

The ancients knew this truth well. The Hebrews sang psalms to sanctify their days; the Greeks filled their festivals with flutes and lyres; the Romans marched to the beat of drums. They understood that the human heart does not endure by bread alone, but by harmony, rhythm, and song. Zappa’s lament reveals that modern life, when stripped of such adornment, becomes barren — filled with deadlines instead of celebrations, with bills instead of beauty. Time without music is time without soul.

Consider the story of the great composer Beethoven. Deaf, cut off from the world of ordinary sound, he might have seen his days as endless burdens, his hours empty of joy. Yet within him he heard melodies greater than any ear had known, and he clothed the gray passage of time with the Ninth Symphony, with immortal sonatas, with thunder and whisper alike. Had he lived only by appointments and debts, his life would have been ordinary; instead, he proved that when music decorates time, even suffering can become sublime.

There is also the example of the enslaved in America, whose days were filled with labor, deadlines not of parchment but of lash and chain. Yet they sang spirituals in the fields, and their music transformed torment into hope, pain into endurance. The cruel march of hours could not crush their spirits, for they clothed it in melody. Thus Zappa’s words remind us that the power to redeem time lies not in escaping it, but in filling it with art, with beauty, with the eternal flame of song.

Zappa himself, ever rebellious, knew that society measures life with calendars and contracts, but the soul measures life with passion. He mocks the dullness of time without music, but beneath his jest lies profound truth: that if we live only for deadlines and bills, we live as slaves to time. But if we decorate time — whether with song, dance, or laughter — we live as free beings, shaping hours into moments that endure beyond the grave.

The lesson is clear: do not let your life be consumed only by obligation. Your days will always hold deadlines, and your table will always bear bills, but you must also let your time be adorned with music, with beauty, with the arts that lift the soul. Set aside moments to sing, to listen, to create. Even in toil, let rhythm guide you; even in sorrow, let song accompany you. For when you fill your hours with melody, you transform time itself into a vessel of joy.

Therefore, O listener, live not as a slave of the calendar, but as a master of time. Do not see your days as chains of duty, but as a canvas to be painted, as a silence to be filled with song. Let your life be a symphony, not merely an account book. Remember Zappa’s truth: without music, time is barren; with music, time becomes eternal.

And so, let us teach future generations that while life demands labor, it also offers melody. Pay your bills, meet your tasks, but never forget to decorate your time with beauty. For it is in music, and in all forms of art, that the human spirit finds not only survival, but true life.