Power

To me, music is like the best kind of drug. It elevates me, it excites me. If it is really good music, or the ultimate high - really good live music, I can even feel it flowing through my veins. It is my life blood.

Music is what connects us from our present to our history. Even a few riffs of a familiar song can evoke the most powerful memories. Instantly I am back in that place, smelling those scents, tasting those foods, seeing those sights, thinking of those people, feeling those emotions.  All from a couple of beats.  This is why I think of life as having a soundtrack and what I draw on, creatively, when I am composing a personalised playlist.

Of course, music can also transport us to places we don't really want or need to visit again.  AC/DC's "Rock & Roll Aint Noise Pollution" is forever ruined for me because of the person and situation it conjures up and Powderfinger's "These Days" is so strongly associated with a sad time in my life (where the lyrics were really resonating with me) that I cried buckets of tears when they played it at their recent farewell concert.

And then there's "Lose Yourself" by Eminem which disgustingly reminds me of vomiting due to it playing on repeat over and over in my head during a particulary messy bout of gastro (think it got into my head in the first place because he talks about vomiting his mum's spaghetti).  And its got that punchy rhythm to it too so that it mimics the throbbing of your pulse from your fever headache. Aargh.  That fucking song would not leave my brain for days and I still get queasy when I hear it on the radio.  And bugger, what do you think is singing around in my head at the moment? Damn you Eminem!

Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" album will always remind me of Mum playing it in the car on the way to school.  That one made such an impact that both my brother and I bought the CD when we were older.  It got a lot of airplay when I was going through a divorce (in fact, I always think of it as the "divorce album") and one of the songs - "Secondhand News" even got a guernsey on one of my daughter's birthday mixes.

"Shimmer" by Fuel takes me back to the drag racing with my girlfriend with the smell of burning rubber in my nose, "Fergalicious" reminds me of the same friend but this time we are in Thailand and it is the smell of the Thai streets and the taste of their syrupy Red Bull in my mouth.

You Am I's "Berlin Chair" and Buckcherry's "Lit Up" will forever remind me of meeting my man for the first time but then so will Gossip's "Standing in the Way of Control" because I played Ministry of Sound's Sessions Four in the car on the way to our first "date".  And to think I actually asked him if he liked doof! Little did I know then that I had stumbled across my perfect musical partner, someone who, like me, needs music wherever he goes.

Oops, I digress. I was caught up in the squishy feelings that remembering that song playing brought up in me. See why I titled this post "Power"?  Truly, what else in our life has this effect on us?

But back on track now (admittedly with a stupid smile on my face).  I don't just hear the melody.  I absorb the lyrics.  So a song may make it onto my memory jogger list purely because the lyrics affected me rather than because I particularly liked the song.  (This also unfortunately means that I could find myself singing along to something on the radio, word for word only to snap out of my evil song trance by one of the kids piping up with a "didn't think you'd like this song Mum!"). 

Of course there are some songs that tick both of those boxes - like em and like the lyrics - like Martha Wainwright's "Bloody Motherfucking Asshole".  See, now I have the taste of vodka in my mouth and I am with my lovely cousin in a park on her hen's day, dressed in a pink silk dress that would later end up with a very dodgy whipped cream stain on it and third degree questioning from a very mistrusting dry-cleaner ("miss, are you absolutely sure it is cream and not something else? It is much better to be honest now so we know what kind of solvent to use"). "Poetry has no place for a heart that's a whore" WTF does that mean anyway? Who cares? The chorus is brilliant and it gives me a chance to sing in a funny accented kind of voice.

Some songs get high rotation on my Ipod purely because of the emotions, the happiness that they bring me.  Because I know that they will deliver the joy hit that I need. Like Sia's "Bring Night" (I know, I know, I keep mentioning this song), 28 Days "Rip It Up" (my Guarana), the aforementioned "Secondhand News", "Everlong" by the almighty Foo Fighters, "Back In Black" by AC/DC, "Dammit" by Blink 182, "Where's Your Head At" by Basement Jaxx, "Lithium" by Nirvana.

"I'm so happy cause today I found my friends, they're in my head"................