Most people can drown out everyday sounds such as those as they become accustomed to them. I cannot do that ever for any reason. Every once in a while I think about J.K. Rowling locking herself in a hotel room to finish the end of HP 7 and Oh My God do I ever understand why that could help a person complete a project. Those noises I hear don't combine to create something pleasant the way music does, obviously, so the choice for me is an easy one. In those times I'm wanting to concentrate, the ear buds have to go in and the iPod goes ON. The singer is little different than Sponge Bob, the drums are the tapping pencil, the chorus similar in cycle to the cars, but it has a totally different effect on me (as it does on just about anyone else), and it's essential.
As with most things in my life, I have very narrow interests in music, and each individual artist I like represents a particular year and state of being. The only album I listened to for the first six months after it released was Pearl Jam's Ten (It reminds me of bullying and neglect). In 1994 it was Green Day's Dookie (Spite and rebellion), and six months after that I picked up Nirvana's Nevermind (Utter disenchantment, all the way). I still listen to those three albums on occasion, but very little else that came out around that time. Entire albums represent an all encompassing picture and clicking-slide-disk of memories, sort of a definition and list of snapshots on whatever "section" of life I happened to be dealing with at that time--also defined as a particular developmental level, I guess. I'd be bothered by the amount of science I apply to it if I thought for a second it lacked emotion, but for something that can be charted and graphed, there's nine tons of invisible feeling where the lines should lay.
From age ten to age twelve I had Michael Jackson's Thriller (I certainly sensed his fear of others back then), Cyndi Lauper's She's So Unusual (Innate strangeness), Phil Collin's No Jacket Required (Unapologetic sense of humor), and nothing else unless it was a one hit wonder on the radio. At fifteen and sixteen, It was Guns and Roses Welcome to the Jungle (Shameless violence and drugs (curiosity at that point)) and L.A. Guns' Cocked and Loaded (Melodramatic depression and stage drama). At seventeen it was Danzig's self titled album (Vengeance, futility, and little else)...and on and on that list goes.
I can't pretend to be a music aficionado in any scope of the word. While I have 17,000 songs on my PC and know a lot of information about various bands from the 80's and 90's (it's a compulsive collecting issue, as with DVD's I'll never watch more than once, or books I've never read but have to own, etc.), I listen to only ONE artist regularly--and that's Sting.
I wouldn't say I'm obsessed. When you talk about unrealistic schizoid issues, this girl ain't guilty at all. If I met the guy, I'd certainly want to shake his hand and say thanks for the music, but I wouldn't expect to be his pal or want a lock of his hair. For whatever reason though, when I first hard the song Syncronicity ll way back in the early 80's, I latched on for dear life. It could have been the lyrics that got me...
Another suburban family morning
Grandmother screaming at the wall
We have to shout above the din of our Rice Crispies
Can't hear anything at all
Grandmother screaming at the wall
We have to shout above the din of our Rice Crispies
Can't hear anything at all
Since then, I've gone on to collect every album in both The Police and Sting's discography. I even have foreign editions and bootleg studio recordings and various concerts. I've heard each one of those songs thousands of times and never tire of them. Often when I'm writing fiction, I have to play either On a Winter's Night or Mercury Falling. They're the only two albums I can concentrate to (for the last year)--every other song in the Universe in those moments would normally be an utter distraction. If I don't play Best of the Police when I clean my house, I'm slow as a slug or reluctant to do anything at all.
Stranger still, every album I listen to has a few numbers attached to it. If on a Winter's Night plays at volume 15 and is around 51 minutes long and was released in 2009. Ten plays at volume 16 and is close to 53 minutes long and was released in 1991 . Nevermind plays at Volume 18 and is about 42 minutes long and was released in 1991, etc., etc., etc.
There's no way on God's green Earth I'm going to be able to explain why that is. I'd have to be able to explain it to myself before I have any hope of letting another person know why or how that particular quirk evolved. It just IS to me, and it's perfectly normal from where I sit. There have been many occasions I've had my feelings hurt in various blogs or chat-room comments because I am so one track mind about it. Some people don't understand that narrowness of interest, or the tunnel-vision I experience fighting my way through each and every day. And the good news is, I get over it pretty fast because I don't expect anyone else to understand how I operate. Really, how could they unless I ran around whining about me, me, me all the time?
I realize the cyclone of information that twirls around inside my head whenever I approach something would probably sound exhausting to other people if I described it, and it really can be sometimes. There are days I fall into bed at night and could almost cry because it's finally dark and silent and it's just what I need. There are other days where life is overwhelming right from the jump and I hide away for hours in a room with a laptop and a good book. Again, I know no other way of being so it's something I have to deal with. There is a constant battle that goes on inside my head over what I think is "normal" and what isn't. It's a coping mechanism that allows me to be perceived by people I meet on the sidewalk as "just like them".
One of the reasons I like the radio on occasion, is that each song I've heard over the course of my life recalls a distinct time and place, even a smell or emotion. It allows me to step outside of the moment I'm in and wander off into my history and "my world," which can be an immense stress reliever. Strangely enough, the only time I break out of my routines and do something different (like turning on the radio or listening to 'Madama Butterfly' rather than hitting the same button on the CD player) is when I'm over stressed and I've exhausted my go-to-list of usual chaos blockers. Songs can be akin to reading a book--a grisly haunting or an eastern beach, depending on what a person needs--because a good song will tell a story before the last beat rolls around. Sometimes, not making sense makes sense.
Music can be a lifeline, a friend, an aspiration, a nemesis, an art, a science, an emotion, a million other things....to absolutely anyone, not just this girl.
I realize the cyclone of information that twirls around inside my head whenever I approach something would probably sound exhausting to other people if I described it, and it really can be sometimes. There are days I fall into bed at night and could almost cry because it's finally dark and silent and it's just what I need. There are other days where life is overwhelming right from the jump and I hide away for hours in a room with a laptop and a good book. Again, I know no other way of being so it's something I have to deal with. There is a constant battle that goes on inside my head over what I think is "normal" and what isn't. It's a coping mechanism that allows me to be perceived by people I meet on the sidewalk as "just like them".
One of the reasons I like the radio on occasion, is that each song I've heard over the course of my life recalls a distinct time and place, even a smell or emotion. It allows me to step outside of the moment I'm in and wander off into my history and "my world," which can be an immense stress reliever. Strangely enough, the only time I break out of my routines and do something different (like turning on the radio or listening to 'Madama Butterfly' rather than hitting the same button on the CD player) is when I'm over stressed and I've exhausted my go-to-list of usual chaos blockers. Songs can be akin to reading a book--a grisly haunting or an eastern beach, depending on what a person needs--because a good song will tell a story before the last beat rolls around. Sometimes, not making sense makes sense.
Music can be a lifeline, a friend, an aspiration, a nemesis, an art, a science, an emotion, a million other things....to absolutely anyone, not just this girl.
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