Saturday, August 4, 2012

What Do You Love About Music?


“What do you love about music?”

“To begin with, everything.”


Ever seen the movie Waitress? Keri Russell is a pie master, struck by quirky pie recipe epiphanies throughout her day, such as “I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie” (quiche with egg and brie cheese with a smoked ham center) and "Earl Murders Me Because I'm Having An Affair Pie" (smash blackberries and raspberries into a chocolate crust).

I am a playlist master. I have playlist epiphanies, and at any given time I am working on at least three playlists actively. And when my headphones aren’t in and my speakers are silent, I'm constantly playing an internal jukebox, elevator music for my thoughts. My life experiences, interactions with people, and the feelings that arise from those interactions become the coins triggering my track selection.

A song strikes me inside like lightning and I’m already thinking: a playlist for the one that got away, titled “Ojos Oscuros” after his dark eyes, filled with music that thrills you, like foreign tongues and telling secrets to strangers and close whispers. My heart gets broken over the phone and all I hear for days is “Phone Call,” by The Faint; that song becomes the first track to a playlist titled “Straight and To The Point: Resilience.” In the middle of a Doctor Who marathon, “Supermassive Black Hole” opens an episode and within minutes I’m halfway through a playlist to bash around the galaxy to (“Come Along, Pond: A TARDIS mix”).

You can expect many, many future playlist posts from me. This is just the first.


“What do you love about music?”

I quoted Almost Famous to pose this question to my twitter followers, and my buddy Cameron (Dettman, lead vocalist and lyricist for the Las Vegas band, Play for Keeps) replied: “the emotions associated with music. How there is a song for every single one.” Spotify has a neat messaging feature, where you can share songs with notes attached between friends. I think I once sent Cameron’s inbox 35 songs in a single night. Jeff Buckley for the heart, John Mayer for the mind, and B.B. King for the soul. And lots of 90’s pop music.

Duia loves music for “the grit of it. How when it's raw and real, it is the rawest and realest thing you've ever known.” Duia listened to a lot of Nirvana and Garbage as a teenager. We bonded over Fall Out Boy lyrics, an intense love for “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” by Iggy Pop and The Stooges, and a mutual soul boner for Jack White.


I love music because it helps me connect.  My brain thinks in tangents and I’m too honest, easily misunderstood and hard to keep up with. I can’t always rely on having the right words to say, but I always know the right song to express what I’m feeling. Third Eye Blind, The Format, Motion City Soundtrack- these are three of my favorite bands for the same reason: candid, passionate lyrics set to upbeat, infectious music. Honesty and reality with glitter sparkling on it.

“I get chills every time as I listen to the scatterbrain effect of deep love rooted in a human being desperate to explain the inexplicable,” wrote Brandon Roundtree, lyricist and lead vocalist of the band CONDITIONS, of the song “The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot,” by Brand New.

You remember music that makes you feel, the same way you never forget the people who change you and your life. All those cries of love and longing that echo your own. Here are ten songs that echo mine.


(click through to listen with Spotify)



“I Want You,” Elvis Costello and The Attractions
“A Case of You,” Joni Mitchell

“Shiver,” Coldplay

“In A Sentimental Mood,” Duke Ellington and John Coltrane
“I Can’t Get Next To You,” Al Green
“Knife,” Grizzly Bear
“Shameless,” Man Man
“Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” Jeff Buckley
“Oh Comely,” Neutral Milk Hotel
“I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” The Beatles

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