Ever wake up with a song you just cannot get out of your head? That's me almost every day. For whatever reason, songs just seem to play around in my head all the time, and evidently even while I am asleep, and I often wake with some tune or other stuck in my head. It is all the more true when I am feeling emotional about something or other, positive or otherwise. At those times, I tend to latch on to songs which move me, whether or not they are songs which necessarily resonate with my emotions at the time. Sometimes the lyrics give voice to the emotions for which I could not find the words. Other times, it is merely the melody or the mood of the song which touch me, for seemingly unfathomable reasons.
So as I was thinking about this, I decided to look into what it is about music that moves us so much. How can songs leave people in tears or in a trance? Not only that, they are now saying, while cautioning that this is only one study and more research would have to be done, yadda, yadda, yadda, that music works better to lower anxiety than drugs.* Hmm... I can certainly attest to music reducing anxiety. When the world feels too much, certain songs always calm me. Unfortunately, my thirst to know everything about how the brain works remains unsatisfied, for they don't know how it is that music affects us in this way. That is, supposedly, the next phase of research in what they call the neuroscience of music.
Anyway the other thing I keep thinking about now, is Tolstoy's the Kreutzer Sonata, which I must admit I have not personally read (yet) but have only read about, in which the powerful emotions evoked by music led the protagonist's wife to have affair, which then inevitably leads to another one of Tolstoy's tragic endings... Far fetched as it may seem to blame the music for the affair, first hand stories I have heard do suggest, to me at least, that music can play a significant role. Not that music alone creates an attraction or sexual chemistry between two people where there was none, but that the powerful emotions evoked by music** could move one to act where one would not have ordinarily acted.
Anyway, the point of this entire post (and you will now see how far from the point I have digressed) was to say that I woke up this morning with a song I cannot get out of my head, and I just wanted to share it (even if the music video is well weird!). Even through my reading up on neuroscience of music online, this song has been playing incessantly in my head. It is a Damien Rice (with Lisa Hannigan) song, whom I think is really very under appreciated. Damien Rice, I mean. And I suppose Lisa Hannigan is as well, cos she has a beautiful voice. But this is about Damien Rice. I love Damien Rice. I think his music is brilliant. His songs often take my breath away and overwhelm me. I am currently in a Damien Rice phase and have been listening to his songs almost ceaselessly. The one I am currently stuck on is 9 Crimes. Currently here meaning it started last night and is still true today. Not sure what chord it strikes in me nor why, not sure it necessarily says anything about anything actually, but I love it. It is just such a haunting piece of music. Even in my Damien Rice phase I had forgotten about this song for a while, until a friend reminded me of it. Now I cannot stop listening to it.
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