Aretha is soul. You can’t argue with Aretha.

Because life goes on, the music told her, even when you think it can't. Yes, there is fear. There is real cruelty. Not knowing what the fuck. Those things are there. But listen because there is this too--this beauty. The human adventure is worth it, after all.

...the vivid past would not go away.Like music, said Peg. Even when it was over, it kept living inside you.

Jazz was about the spaces between notes. It was about what happened when you listened to the thing inside you. The gaps and the cracks. Because that was where life really happened, when you were brave enough to free-fall.

That was why Peg loved the Messiah best of all. Because it showed people they were not alone. No matter about their differences, the music lifted them up and lowered them down, only to raise them even higher. It worked like a spell.