For the past few days, my brain has been stuck in high gear. Nothing particularly is wrong. Everything is fine, actually. But I’ve been unable to relax. You know what I mean – Shoulders and neck are like a board, songs are running through your head and you can’t get them out, food sticks in your throat on the way down and you just cannot relax. Deep breathing only works for a few seconds. Sleeping just makes your neck hurt even more, and when you wake up, that same damned song is still stuck in your head. (I love that song, really, but enough already…)
Then, this morning, while walking to work, I slipped on my IPOD headphones and clicked on Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road.
Within 30 seconds, I could feel my shoulders relax in a way they had not done in weeks. My step lightened. My breathing deepened. My head cleared. And that damned song became nothing but a memory.
I sighed.
Four hours later, I was still feeling great.
It wasn’t the first time Bruce had come through for me
When I was in labor with my first child, I came very close to having a C-section. The baby’s head was up at -1 station and I had been pushing for almost two hours but getting nowhere. At that point, we turned down the epidural so I could feel what I was doing. And I put on my Walkman with a tape for Born to Run blasting at almost full volume. Within 3 pushes, Emily was born.
What is it about music that can literally transport us to another place? And what is it about Bruce?
I don’t think it’s just me. When I was in grad school, my roommate, who was always neat but never cleaned our apartment, cleaned it one day because a friend who was visiting happened to put on my Born to Run album. “You always play that album when you clean”, she later explained. “As soon as that song started, it was like I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed the vacuum and off I went.” She had never cleaned before, and was never to again. But that day, Bruce put her into a place where nothing was more important to her than making that place shine like there was no tomorrow.
I don’t know if I’ll ever understand it
But I’m sure as heck going to remember it. And in the future, if I ever find myself stuck in a place and can’t get out, I won’t wait so long to call on my man Bruce.
I’m a big fan of Eminence Front by the Who, Abacab by Genesis, or Little Bit of Feelgood by Jamie Cullum to make me dance off tension. As for housecleaning… Aretha Franklin. Nothing like “pissed off chick” music to get you going – Sam (who is female)
oops – make that Jamie Lidell!!
Great post.
I get motivated to do different things with different music.
I listen to George Winston when I need to buckle down and get a lot of reading done.
I listen to modern jazz if I need to do creative stuff (think Chick Corea, Special FX and the like).
I listen to a hard rock medley with my boys before soccer and lacrosse games to get pumped up – nothing like a little old school Guns, baby! This of course comes complete with the head banging moves.
I listen to Andrea Bocelli when I drive home at night and need to sing REALLY LOUD and offend no one…this is how I get a whole lot of stress out, but I think I have to be in a pretty good mood to begin with to go operatic.
Seal has an effect like a phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitor for me – know what I’m saying?
When I am really down, music is one of those things to get me out of my funk. Classic rock works here. The Who’s Quadrophenia comes to mind. That and your friend Bruce does the trick sometimes too. Pink Floyd works to keep me in the funk if that is where I need to stay…just the kind of music that you don’t want to play on a suicide hot line…ya know?
The rest is too embarrassing to mention – even on your blog. But let’s just say that when needed my inner 80’s child comes out to play. I plan on this side of me to emerge publically again in front of my kids and their friends as a source of punishment based on humiliation. This is in reserve until we are in the teen years of course…
It is not certain genres but rather particular songs that get to me…
Cannot listen to “The Star Spangled Banner” without totally welling up. I find myself catching my breath when I sing it – even if it is being played by my kid’s 6th grade orchestra, complete with flats and sharps. This emotion has only intensified since 9/11.
Haven’t been able to listen to Jennifer Hudson’s “And I am Telling You” from “Dreamgirls” in months – the overwhelming emotion of that song just does me in. I will save that for a day when I am already emotional and need a good cry.
There’s a country song called “I Loved Her First” which is a father talking to his new son-in-law on his daughter’s wedding day. My 3 girls are nowhere near marriage age but I get all emotional thinking of their Dad will feel when he gives them away on their wedding day. How crazy is that?
And finally, so you don’t think that I am just this depressing, crying, peri-menopausal mess, I cannot even explain what Michael Buble’s “Everything” makes me feel. I cannot help but smile as I sing along at top decibels in the car on the highway. Michael just has that effect on me.
Thanks TBTAM, for making me think of the effect that music has on me. Now, if you will forgive me, I must get back to the radio which is playing Christmas songs and the tear-jerker, “The Red Shoes”. (snif)
XO, OBS Housekeeper
“Hollaback Girl”
By Gwen Steffani
So, what I don’t get, is why you didn’t play that album for your grad school roommate every week so that she’d clean the apartment?
You’re clearly not nearly as sneaky or underhanded as some of us might be…
When I need to clean house, John Phillip Sousa hits the spot.
In college I played John Klemmer’s Touch album for cleaning.
During the 90s my mother lived in a remote community outside of a small town. It required driving down a canyon road, crossing a narrow river bridge and then going back up the hill on the other side.
I always sang Bruce’s The River when drving to visit my mother. My mother died 8 years ago. Earlier this year I did the same drive again to do some sight seeing and clear my head. Starting singing Bruce just like in the old days.
When I hear a song I usually associate it with some time in my life. Recently one of the nearby clubs was advertising that Tainted Love would be playing (they are a cover band). But gosh, the Soft Cell song Tainted Love came to mind and many good memories of college came rushing back.
CardioNP
where you come from!