Euterpe: Muse of Music and Queen of the Road
by Guest Blogger Rachel Goldsworthy
The best part of sitting in the back seat is singing. The bonus for weighing enough to get the front seat is having the CD or tape collection within arm’s reach.
Spilling CDs out of the glove box and fumbling them from their cases and into the player only to discover that someone put Big and Rich where Patsy is supposed to be…well, that is a drawback for the driver. Other than that, music on the road is pure pleasure whether I’m heading for a family reunion, a campsite, or hard bleachers in hot sun.
In the summertime, I flash back to the joy of the kids rocking out to
We are the Champions on the way home from a baseball game, of belting out
Me and Bobby McGee along with Janis on a solo road trip, of my husband trying to find the notes – any notes – of
Money for Nothing.
Now that so many of us have iPods and our cars have docks for them, we can assemble special playlists, soundtracks for life that make summertime road trips even better. Miley Cyrus and Queen for the youngsters on tournament weekends. Queen and country for the middle ages any time. Chopin and Van Morrison for romantic getaways. Jann Arden’s
Where No One Knows Me and the
Ennis Sisters’ It’s Not About You when the trunk and back seat and passenger side are loaded with boxes of dishes, crates of books and plastic bags full of clothes.
It’s fun to flip through the jukebox of my mind or the list on my iPod to come up with the perfect song, and I seem to do it more when the sun’s shining and the roads are dry. Summertime. When the singin’ is easy.
I love lip syncing
Fred Eaglesmith’s Mighty Big Car when I’m stopped at a light next to a guy in a huge shiny pickup, or
Nancy White’s My God My Mom if it’s a minivan loaded with shopping bags and teenagers.
Are there tunes that reach out of the car stereo and make you croon? Please tell me I’m not the only one on the road who can’t resist singing along with
Honky Tonk Woman – even when the windows are open.
~~~
Rachel Goldsworthy writes underappreciated funny women's fiction. Somebody's going to get it one of these days. You'll find her commentary on life at
http://www.rachelgoldsworthy.blogspot.com/Labels: music, Rachel Goldsworthy, summertime
Mom, do you have my Bright Eyes CD again???
By Norah Wilson
One of the pros (and cons) of having a teenager is being exposed to new music. Emo, screamo, metal, indie rock, ska punk, hardcore punk, reggae, you name it. I've heard it all through the walls of my office as I try t
o write. I can’t say I like it all, but I will admit to raiding my kids’ CD collections occasionally, particularly my daughter’s. Through her, I discovered the fabulously talented and tragic
Elliott Smith, the quirky
Modest Mouse and
Bright Eyes (the band fronted by the brilliant Conor Oburst), which are now firmly ensconced in my favorites. And while I may not steal her Death Cab for Cutie, Sublime, Interpol, The Used or My Chemical Romance, I know who they are when I hear them, and I don’t hate it when I discover them in the CD player in my car.
But this music exchange is a two-way street. I’ve turned my kids onto
Warren Zevon (RIP, Warren),
Wilco,
Soul Asylum,
Radiohead,
John Hiatt, and more. If I want to hear my
Lemonheads CD, I head for my daughter’s bedroom to dig it out of her collection. Zevon tends to be camped out in the basement with my son. Heck, I was the one who made them listen to (and eventually love)
Everlast, since, oddly, neither of them would give a rap artist a chance.
But what I can’t figure out is why this taste transference hasn’t happened between the kids and their father. Okay, maybe I
can figure it out. His tastes run more to country (and not the fabulously popular kind; we’re talking Iris Dement, not Faith Hill), big band, Texas swing, classic rock (I think the last rock song he liked was penned by The Who, recognized by my kids as the theme music to CSI). So for the most part, they don’t like his music and he flat out hates theirs.
One of the reasons, I think, is that I’ve always done more of the chauffeuring duty to get the kids here or there, so we had more time to imprint our music on each other.
But I think perhaps the bigger reason is that some people never learn to like music that comes along after their heyday. We’re indelibly marked by the music that made up the soundtrack of our own teenage years, and some of us never get beyond that.
Okay, so which camp do you fall into? Are you receptive to new music, or did they quit making good music when you turned 20? And if you are in the receptive camp, did you ever get turned on to a great new artist by your kids? Inquiring minds want to know.
Labels: Bright Eyes, Elliott Smith, Modest Mouse, music
The emotions of music
It's a brand new month, and that means there's a new issue of the Wet Noodle Posse e-zine up on our site. Be sure to check out all the fabulous articles. Our Faves listing this month is our
favorite movie soundtracks, a particular favorite topic of mine since I love soundtracks, especially orchestral ones. Since we submitted our copy for this issue, however, I've bought and fallen in love with yet another soundtrack --
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.
I love every single song, from the fun and whimsical "Up is Down" to the sweeping emotion of "One Day" to the proud voices in "Hoist the Colours", the only song with singing accompanying the music. Hans Zimmer, who has done other soundtracks such as
Batman Begins,
King Arthur,
Gladiator and
Black Hawn Down, captures the essence and emotion of each scene and puts it to music. That's a talent I very much admire since I don't have a musical bone in my body.
It's the mark of a good soundtrack when you can listen to it and immediately see the accompanying scenes, reexperience the emotions you felt while watching those scenes. It's one of the things that make watching movies such a different entertainment experience than reading books. In addition to the visual, you have the audial. And for whatever reason, music taps into our emotions. I've probably relistened to the
Pirates soundtrack 15 or 20 times by now, and it's because I love how the music takes me back to the story. I can relive Captain Jack's humorous antics, the battles between the pirate lords and the East India Trading Company, and the love story between Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann.
Plus, I can actually write to orchestral soundtracks (unlike ones with words, which I find distracting) and feed the emotion from the music into my writing. I think my work comes out richer for that extra emotion.
Now, we've told you our favorite soundtracks. What are yours? Really, we want to know. Hey, I might get some good suggestions to add to my collection.
Labels: movies, music
The best part of sitting in the back seat is singing. The bonus for weighing enough to get the front seat is having the CD or tape collection within arm’s reach.
Now that so many of us have iPods and our cars have docks for them, we can assemble special playlists, soundtracks for life that make summertime road trips even better. Miley Cyrus and Queen for the youngsters on tournament weekends. Queen and country for the middle ages any time. Chopin and Van Morrison for romantic getaways. Jann Arden’s Where No One Knows Me and the Ennis Sisters’ It’s Not About You when the trunk and back seat and passenger side are loaded with boxes of dishes, crates of books and plastic bags full of clothes.
It’s fun to flip through the jukebox of my mind or the list on my iPod to come up with the perfect song, and I seem to do it more when the sun’s shining and the roads are dry. Summertime. When the singin’ is easy.
Are there tunes that reach out of the car stereo and make you croon? Please tell me I’m not the only one on the road who can’t resist singing along with Honky Tonk Woman – even when the windows are open.
