I've Got the Music in Me

I love music of all kinds; jazz, funk, hip hop, indie, classical, swing, instrumental, rock, world beat, folk. I like some genres of music I cannot name. That goes for some I don't like, too.

Music is something I often have near-total recall of; don't ask me why. Maybe with age repeatedly listening to much of it tends to do that to people, though that isn’t always a blessing. My mind also has an uncanny knack of remembering virtually any rhythm, and invariably replays it in my head from the first instant one chances to be heard. Sometimes the music is okay, depending on mood or circumstance and if it's something I've come up with myself. If I’m feeling energetic, it’s handy to have Born to be Wild blaring between my ears. If I’m in a doctor’s office, I can pass time listening to some relaxing Mozart or Bach on my internal iPod.

However, at other times having non-stop music playing is just irritating. For example, when I used to feed my cat, Athena, first thing in the morning, I would mouth a little ditty I made up and that she seemed to have some appreciation for; it was part of the ritual we'd go through every day. Cats are ever creatures of habit, so I liked to believe she almost expected to hear the song as well as see food simultaneously appear in her dish.

I didn’t mind humouring her, even if she could care less whether I accompanied feeding time with dinner music; maybe she was humouring me. In all likelihood, she didn’t mind the noise provided her food found its ultimate destination. The problem occurred after the ritual was over, because the ditty wouldn’t go away.

Can you imagine for a moment what it must be like to hear “Thena beena weena, you’re my fuzzy keena” coursing through your mind for hours on end? Even when I managed to forego adding the words, the tune itself would continue playing unabated until some life event distracted me, or another piece of music finally took its place.

Just the mere thought of that senseless melody running endlessly in my brain has brought it back to full awareness again; it’s playing right now. Heaven help me, but there are times when I could wish for a home lobotomy kit.

Being in a blue funk often sets the stage for the band in my head to start playing some form of melancholic music. If I have to hear Sinatra warbling In the Wee Small Hours one more time in a private (albeit, free) performance just for me when I’m feeling nostalgic about a lost love, drastic measures may be needed. I mean, I enjoy music that puts you in a mood, but to have it persistently enhancing one you’d rather not be feeling in the first place can drive you batty.

Maybe I already am. Some internet sources suggest that constant music going through one’s head is a sign of stress and possibly linked to ADHD-ADD, bipolarism or avoidance of dealing with life’s issues, among other things. If any of it’s true, then I should have been committed for further study a long time ago, because it’s rare for me to find peace from my cerebral stereo.

One solution I’ve found that helps is to plunk five cd’s into the disc changer and set the play mode to random. That keeps something different playing all the time, and for a while I find surcease from the mind-numbing monotony of listening to the same song repeatedly. Meditation helps, too, as long as there’s something to focus on instead of whatever background song happens to be spinning on my mental jukebox. It’s very challenging to stop focussing on thoughts when one’s mind is bouncing along to ‘a wop-boppa loo-bop a wop-bam boom’. Tutti-Frutti and finding my quiet space just don’t go well together. Someday things will change, or so I believe; maybe when I’ve left this life behind. I can only pray that the Choir Invisible has a large repertoire and only performs on Sundays. On the other hand, maybe having the music in me is a better option than not having any at all.