I know what you are thinking. This is a total cop-out post. A “she didn’t know what to write about, so she inserted some You Tube video” post. The “it’s only Day 4 and she can’t figure out how to squeeze it all in” post.
And, yes, though, all of those may have bits of truth to them, this is something that deserves a post.
I need music to write.
Okay, to clarify, I need noise. And it isn’t just to write, it is all of the time. I have to have something on that provides noise. Music is preferable, but background noise from the TV will do. In college and when I lived alone in my apartments before getting married, I would fall asleep with the TV on, that need for noise was so great. Even now, when I go to bed before my husband gets home, the TV is on, the sound is there.
And how this never-ceasing soundtrack need has impacted Kiddo is a whole other post, you can be certain.
This jonesing for music, for noise is especially strong when I am writing. Sometimes, I need moodier stuff, maybe tunes from Morphine or Rene Aubry, as the ideas marinate. Sometimes, I select a pumping beat, an angry song from Kate Nash or Eminem, that will get me where I need to be, push my words through me and onto the computer screen.
I need music to write.
So, every Thursday, I’m going to share what I’m listening to…again, I haven’t quite thought this through (it is only Day 4, people), yet I think it may open up some interesting conversations that may have nothing to do with — or everything to do with — the song I’ve selected.
Today, I’m totally digging “Tonight Tonight” by Hot Chelle Rae.
There. There it is, in the video below.
It is light, poppy, totally fluffy. Of course, I’m thinking I should have selected some cool, new, thoughtful, poignant song, one by like Bon Iver or Fun., but well, peeps, that’s not what’s playing today. Today, with these mega gray NYC skies, with my brain and feet a bit of out of step, with my mind overwhelmed with ideas and thoughts and tasks, this boppy, stick-in-your-brain song is making this day bearable for me.
And FYI, you know when a song gets stuck in your head, as may very well happen with “Tonight Tonight”? That has a clinical term: you have an earworm. A study by the University of Cincinnati found that of the 1,000 study participants, a whopping 99% had occasionally experienced earworms.
And to get rid of an earworm, to get a song unstuck? Put on a different song and do something to refocus your brain…tackle a crossword puzzle or jump a few jumping jacks…or, I guess, write.
