When a song says what you can’t say yourself.

Some songs are simply music.

And some meet us on one very particular day so precisely that, for a moment, it feels as if someone wrote them only for that moment.

A line in the chorus. A melody. Maybe only a chord change. Suddenly there is something we have been carrying around for a while, but in a form for which we had not found words.

Music does not explain everything

That may be one of its strengths.

A good song does not have to solve a problem or provide an answer. It can simply leave a feeling standing there.

Sad without being hopeless. Happy without being silly. Full of longing without having to explain exactly what it is longing for.

We can recognise ourselves in it without the story of the song having to be exactly our own story.

Sometimes we understand a feeling only when we do not have to explain it, but can hear it instead.

der uNi

Why I like making music myself

My music is created under the name Mr. MUNIQAI. What interests me is not only whether a chorus stays in your head.

I am interested in the thought behind it.

Sometimes a song begins with a single line. Sometimes with a mood. And sometimes there is only a question at first: what would this moment sound like?

Then something gradually grows from it.

What I find fascinating is that music carries thoughts differently from a text on a website. A sentence is read. A song also arrives through voice, rhythm and sound.

At some point, a song belongs to other people too

Once music is out in the world, you lose some control over what it means.

And that is a good thing.

I might have had something very specific in mind when writing a line, while someone else finds their own story in it. A song can begin in one place and later trigger something in a completely different life.

I like that.

Not everyone has to hear the same thing even when everyone hears the same song.

Which music stays with us?

Interestingly, it is not always the technically best or most successful songs that remain.

It is the songs connected to a person, a summer, a car journey or a difficult time.

The first few seconds are enough – and we are there again.

That is why I may not only share music here at der uNi in the future, but also tell the story of why a piece was created and what thought sits behind it.

Sometimes the story behind a song is almost as interesting as the song itself.

Which song says something for you that you would find difficult to put into words yourself?

Marco, der uNi