Pop Phenomenology: Music and Me

Music. It’s always, always with me. Even when I was a kid, I had to have music on all the time. One of my mom’s favorite stories of me as a little girl involves me, in diapers, dancing. Another features me entertaining myself in the morning by hanging out in my crib and singing to myself. I’m sure my mother’s definition of singing in this instance wouldn’t qualify as what most people would call singing. It’s not like I was a musical prodigy that could carry a tune at 18 months like Rufus Wainwright.

I’ve been listening to Mr. Wainwright this morning. I go through these phases where I search out new music like crazy, and that inevitably leads me back to my old favorites. For instance, the new Franz Ferdinand album, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action, is fantastic. It’s very FF, which of course pushes me to their older stuff, which in turn pushes me to other things to which I was listening at the time I began listening to FF, which then moves me on to other songs. It’s nearly an infinite regress/progress. Different moods will call for different songs, of course, so I won’t be led to the same songs every time.

I can’t name the mood I’m in currently. It’s a transition-laden one, though, as the beginning of a new semester always brings with it an adjustment period. I’m still adjusting to life in the new apartment, and it’s strange to not have Mel and Jason here, too. But these are good adjustments. I digress, however; the point of this entry is not to talk about adjusting, necessarily, but to talk about music.

I make playlists in iTunes all the time. Usually, they are imaginings of things I want to send to other people. I don’t consider myself a terribly talented person – I’m not a musician, I don’t feel particularly creative, blah blah blah – but I do possess the talent of being able to put together a good mix. That aside, I’ve been throwing a new playlist together. It’s a kind of depository for songs that, at some point or other, I’ve been obsessed with and wanted to absolutely live inside of. There are a lot of songs I’ve obsessed/do obsess over, and I do it proudly. Luckily, I have some dear people in my life who are willing to listen to me freak out about songs. You know who you are, and I appreciate you all.

For example, there’s this one:

I’ve loved Ash for a really long time, and this song isn’t new. But god, just listen to this song. This song has so many elements that just get me every time. First, I’ve always been a sucker for voices. If the voice doesn’t do it for me, I can’t get into the song. Tim Wheeler’s voice is a voice that does it for me. Second, I love the cymbals. In the first chorus, at 1:04 in, when he sings “Brought by dark, divine intervention” you will hear 3 cymbal crashes. Those cymbals; those three hits in a row give the song a sense of urgency. Is it a crash cymbal? A splash cymbal? I should consult Scott, my favorite drummer, about that one (ETA: Scott said it’s a crash cymbal; thank you, Scott!). Those cymbals are perfection. Third, though never finally, the key change. You can hear it at approximately 4:10. A well-placed key change can make a song so much more emotionally saturated. A really well done key change in a song is like a really bad ass slow-motion sequence in a film (I’m thinking of when Max exits the elevator with his bee box in Rushmore . That scene kills me.) Anyway, combine Tim’s voice with those cymbal crashes and that key change, and you have something I will listen to on repeat forever.

I guess I don’t create things because I can’t help but understand that there are always people who can create better and more beautiful things than I ever could. But I can appreciate what they create, and I do. I absolutely do. I react physically to certain songs, and I mean beyond the urge to dance. Don’t get me wrong, I love to bop around, but certain songs, the songs that become obsessions for me, affect me differently than do other songs. I actually get an ache in my chest; it feels like falling in love and heartbreak are happening simultaneously inside me. It feels like the world is falling apart and coming together all at once. It feels like nothing will ever make sense again because that song has so disrupted my world that I can’t understand how I ever managed to get along before hearing it.