A Pity Party-ish Musical Interlude

My Bluetooth picks up my phone in the car so some mornings I am startled into being by a true crime podcast in mid sentence, but more often it’s something like Talk Dirty to Me blaring out of the speakers. My phone is in my purse, the purse is in my school bag, the school bag is in the backseat and I do not have the particular set of skills that allow me to switch listening options. I’m stuck and it’s generally fine.

Listening to more music in the car when I have previously spent so many years with audiobooks, has opened up some realizations. First, I like Neil Young and have no problem nasally mumbling along with him. However the clarity of lyrics blasting in the car revealed that “A Man Needs a Maid” really is just about that. Neil needs a fucking housekeeper.

Much as I love the memory of watching Axel Rose do his sideways crab dance in the video for “Paradise City” while waiting for my ride to high school (Back in my day MTV played music videos ….the end), I now kind of think there are moments where Axel Rose sounds more like Adam Sandler imitating Axel Rose. There’s a wormhole to go down.

Music lets my mind wander because I’m not following plot line or a podcast conversation. Because music is so inherently tied to emotions and moments, that wander does not always yield happy results. Released in 1994, the lyrics for Bruce Springsteen’s song “Streets of Philadelphia” immediately conjure images of my brother in his hospital bed. I do not keep it on a playlist but I know it’s out there. Nirvana songs make me think of him as well to a less graphic degree. He liked Nirvana and I was really starting to like Nirvana, and starting to get him a little bit more as a person. I was a shitty big sister. Incredibly inconveniently, he and Kurt Cobain both passed in April 1994. I have a sufficient amount of Nirvana in my playlists.

Even the Sunday morning yoga playlist got me a little teary when she hit us with “There are places I’ll remember…” followed a little too closer by “Tiny Dancer” which I associate with the movie Almost Famous. Unpopular opinion, I think it’s a sad film. I had clearly been inside my head too much the previous 24 hours. Thank goodness Adventure Buddy was up for post-yoga coffee. Shit goes sideways when it’s just me and my interior for too long.

However I can’t escape the musical associations, good or bad. An entire Cat Stevens album will always be making out with a certain someone in high school. “Come on Eileen” is dancing on 80’s Night in college. “Highway to Hell” is very literally OG AB and I on route 666 while a horse decided to race across the highway.

Sometimes I definitely need the mental palette cleanser of podcast discussions on how long arsenic stays in the body of murder victims.

Congrats on making it to the end of this post even after it took a turn midway! You deserve a cat picture. I told Bird I wanted to sit in the bath while I wrote this and she hit me with a solid “Bitch, please” look. She’s probably hogging my bed right now.