Thought for the Day (Sept 13)

Subject: Thought for the Day (Sept 13)
From: Peter T.
Date: 13 Sep 99 - 10:35 AM

Sept 13 - Three weeks ago I went around for days with "Sir Patrick Spencer" from Rick Fielding's new album (well, actually a rough cut I inadvertantly got) in my head, various phrases and instrumental tags and tugs. For the last few days it has been Tish Hinojosa's version of the old song "Estrellita" from her "Aquella Noche" album. I carry phrases around, it hums behind me when I work, and when I am thinking about something else, it invades. Amusingly, I decided it was a bit like falling in love, and then it hit me that it was exactly like falling in love -- well, maybe just for obsessive personalities. Exactly the same pattern of repetition, memories of little physical quirks tightly associated with that person, and the bubble of spirit that carries you along through the chores and the day. If that is right, then sometimes "music is not just the food of love", but is the thing itself, or its kissing cousin, and is really embedded in some root part of the brain and drenched in some weird primeval, ineradicable chemistry. Humm, hummm, hummmm, (high note, drop) humm, hummm, hummm.... (p.t.)

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 13)
From: KathWestra
Date: 13 Sep 99 - 10:48 AM

If love is defined by the way it gets under your skin, then music and love are definitely related! I, too, find bits of songs running through my head as organically and unconsciously as my breathing. The fact that the songs are different depending on the day may speak to the fickleness of this sort of love -- or of the ability of folk music to speak meaningfully to so many different moods and circumstances. At any rate, I often find myself becoming annoyed when someone else's idea of what I should be "listening" to (like Muzak) interrupts the snatch of tune playing in my head. By the way, for the past two days it's been "Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still," which was printed in the latest issue of the CDSS newsletter. Gorgeous song collected in North Carolina by Frank and Anne Warner. The version I hear is Sara Grey's ethereal singing of it.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 13)
From: Neil Lowe
Date: 13 Sep 99 - 11:50 AM

...intriguing psychological phenomenon. I must be the most easily influenced person in the world....because I will inevitably find myself humming a snatch of a song I just heard on the radio, or on the supermarket's Muzak system, or a song that someone else was humming as I passed them on the street!

Regards, Neil (who hopes they're not inserting subliminal messages to buy something totally worthless in those songs , but whose paranoia tells him that's probably why he feels he can't live without things like sugar in his life)

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 13)
From: catspaw49
Date: 13 Sep 99 - 12:23 PM

Geezus............This one is WAY too easy. Add in Kath and Neil's posts and it's good for 12 to 15 paragraphs minimum. I feel like a shark that turns away from a chum boat, but I'll just leave it..............This is really painful.

Have a nice day.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 13)
From: KathWestra
Date: 13 Sep 99 - 12:29 PM

Aw c'mon Spaw, take a bite! Such willpower is uncharacteristic. Kath

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 13)
From: Allan C.
Date: 13 Sep 99 - 01:33 PM

Small wonder that there haven't been studies made to analyze comparisons of endorphin release upon seeing a loved one, consuming chocolate, or hearing a meaningful folksong. Then again, it would probably overload a circuit somewhere if a loved one were to be consuming chocolate and singing a meaningful folksong. Or maybe if there were a folksong about a meaningful loved one eating...Oh nevermind!

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 13)
From: Marion
Date: 13 Sep 99 - 05:13 PM

Whenever I go to a Highland Games, I hear bagpipes (not tunes, just the general sound of plenty of pipers warming up at once) for hours after.