I wake up every morning with a song in my head. The music is playing before my feet hit the floor. Depending on what happens during the day, sometimes the song changes. It could be a tune I hear on the radio on the way to work, or something that happens during the day, that sparks the song change. Maybe the kids are talking about music class at school and I ask them if they want to start a girl band and can't stop laughing about my suggestion that we call them C&C Music Factory and then for 24 solid hours I am humming Things That Make You Go Hmm. Or like, a few weeks ago, a notorious rapper was dis-invited to the campus I work at, for gang rape allegations and I. just. could.not get his music out of my head. Like, all damn day. Every time someone brought up the situation, my brain just went right to the chorus of one of his big hits.
Other person: "Wow. This situation about Sean Kingston is tricky. Should he come and do the concert?"
Me: "Yeah Whew. Tough call but we need to stand with survivors."
My Head, Instantly: "Somebody call 9-1-1, shawty fire burning on the dance floor. Wooo-ooo. Somebody call 9-1-1, shawty fire burning on the dance floor."
Me, 10 hours later, in bed, with my blankie up around my neck: "Somebody call 9-1-1..."
Sometimes, I can't get a song out of my head and I also sing the wrong lyrics and I can't stop singing the wrong lyrics, like Panic at the Disco, at the top of my lungs:"Hey! Look Ma! I'm FAMOUS! I'm FAMOUS."Char: "Momma, it's I made it." Me: Ok, yeah, Hey! Look Ma! I'm FAMOUS."Or, I weave some lyrics as a reply to something someone says to me.
Person: "I started running and it's so great."
Me: "Maybe you were born to run."
Caroline bumps into me, I spill my drink and it's T-Swift Time. Me: "Look what you made me do. Look what you made me do. Look what you just you made me do look what you just made me do."
Did I mention I can't carry a tune? I do this with poems, too, and that's easier because I can get the spoken word out without butchering it too much. Sometimes, I badly modify the lyrics to the song in my head so that I can carry on a conversation to the song's tune. It's the weekend and Caroline is on hour 4 of watching her ipad and I'm pretty sure that kid is Mike TV. It's time to tell her to power down. Today's song in my head, Break Up With Your Girlfriend, is courtesy of Ariana Grande.
Me: "Hey Caroline, break up with your ipad. Yeah, yeah, cuz I'm bored. You can watch it in the morning, yeah, yeah, it'll be all yours." Poor Caroline.
Do you ever think about, if you were stranded on a deserted island for the rest of your life, and you only had one CD in your solar powered boom box, what CD you'd choose? I do all of the time because music is always playing in my head. After a lot of thought, I've decided that it would be Dave Matthews Band Crash, Hozier at Bonaroo (I know that's not a CD) or Ani Difranco's Not a Pretty Girl, but ugh, it's so hard to narrow down and now, I already have a bunch more on the list since I started writing this post.
Do you ever think about, if you had to choose one song to describe your life, what would it be? Whew, I do this all of the time, too. Sometimes, it's the way that I talk to myself during the day. Lyrics thread in and out of my thoughts like answers to my own life's questions. They comfort me. They empower me. They remind me that I am not alone.
Phish, Down With Disease: "I'm waiting for the time when I can finally say, that this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way."
Ani Difranco, Pick Yer Nose: "How come I can pick my ears but not my nose? Who made up that rule anyway? You gotta live light enough to see the humor and long enough to see some change."(Let's not even talk about how one day I fully intend to play Untouchable Face after the girls' first heart breaks.)
Ed Sheeran, Castle on the Hill: "These people raised me and I can't wait to go home."
Ariana Grande, Breathin': "Just keep breathin' and breathin' and breathin' and breathin' And oh, I gotta keep, keep on breathin'."
I've thought a lot about the soundtrack to my life and why music is always on my mind. I'm not a musician and I'm not musical. According to this article,
these earworms, as they are called, may have something to do with the shape, size and thickness of my brain. My endomusia (hearing music that isn't there) may also be closely tied to emotions. This makes sense to me because music is such an amazing way to express emotions and to connect with others on an emotional level. Who hasn't felt something just by hearing the first few chords of a song? Who isn't taken back in time when they hear the chorus of a song that was popular when they were in high school.A little more digging on Ye Old Internet led me to some information about the correlation between auditory musical hallucinations and mood disorders, depression, anxiety, PTSD, psychosis and even dementia. This also makes sense to me. Without having any background in neuroscience, this resonates with me and I now want to learn more about it.
I've had music in my head for as long as I can remember and I've have lived with anxiety and depression for almost that long, too. If I were really to dig into my past, I wouldn't be surprised if I couldn't find an actual correlation between the two. I always thought I just loved music and needed it playing (either in real life or imagined in my head) because there was always music playing at my house when I was a kid. My dad woke up every morning and turned on the boom box. My brother and I got ready for the bus while listening to Poison, Def Leppard and AC/DC. In college, I always studied with music on because it helped me retain information better. I've never run a race without music, even when headphones were supposedly banned. I am deeply connected to words and words set to music stick with me.
Sometimes I think that music protects me because shuts out the actual soundtrack of my life. If I were to be honest with you, my gut reaction to the soundtrack of my life is this.
The soundtrack to my life is a scream. Sometimes, it is a funny, silly, isn't this predicament really nutty, scream like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. At other times, it is the exhilarating scream of a roller coaster ride or the shocking, fear-filled scream of seeing a snake in the garden. Often, it's the Wicked Witch of the West cackle, especially when I set my flying monkeys on my kiddos. But sometimes the scream is Shelley Duvall in the Shining, when I'm hiding in the bathroom and my life is lurking outside the door with a hatchet, threatening to huff and puff and blow my house in. And on the worst of days, my scream is the scream of Edvard Munch- anxious, panicked, lonely, uncertain and silent.
I am working on not using music as my shield. I am learning to be more comfortable with silence and to use the silence of my own mind to shut out the scream that pierces my days and vibrates through my day's moments . I am learning to find peace and to take comfort in meditation, in quieting my mind. I am learning to stop all of the noise that makes my mind scream. I am ready to allow the music in my head to be the sound of silence.
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