The Racket #36: SOUND
Sounds pretty good.
A few songs or musically related items that have been on shuffle in my head for what now feels like eternity:
- Seal / "Kiss From A Rose"
I was not a fan of Batman's rubber nipples and at the time (the time being the darker dregs of puberty's hormonal spin) Seal's "Kiss From A Rose" could not compare to anything Eminem angrily spat about. Somehow, decades after the shiny-pated crooner brought the holler to '90s superheroes, the song it still has its claws in me
- Counting Crows / "'Round Here"
More than once a day I find myself loudly, embarrassingly screaming, entirely unprompted, "She steps out the front door like a ghost into the night..." Where this comes from, this full-throated rendition of a song almost no one will admit to liking anymore (heathens), this I don't know?
- "Part Of That World" / The Little Mermaid OST
When trying to remember what my first musical album was I often argue for either The Simpson Sings The Blues, Dr. Dre's The Chronic or Nirvana's In Utero. If I wasn't stretching for hipster cred, it would probably be the white cassette tape version of The Little Mermaid's soundtrack. I spent a lot of time on my neighbor Mihak Hagel's porch, a little emotional, trying to hit the high notes on this one.
- "A Whole New World" / Aladdin OST
Formative animated film. When my mind wanders, as it does often, this song often times floats to the surface. It's not pretty
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Now, it would seem from this collection of tunes that I have the bad taste of a fraternity guy from 1995 who still holds tight his (secret?) love of animated Disney flicks from the heyday of animated Disney flicks. I have nothing to say about Seal or about the performance of "A Kiss From A Rose" I once saw where Brian Boitano skate-danced as the musician stood on a staircase made of faux ice. That clearly will make an impact.
I do not have the musical taste of a 1995 frat boy and though I do love Aladdin and The Little Mermaid in the sense that they were huge deals to me when I was a wee child still reaching for my first deal I haven't seen either of them for years and I have no intention of doing so. Yet, for whatever reason, these are the songs tangled into a sonic knot in my brain. These are the songs that when no one's looking, when all eyes are turned away from where my brain is running, these are (some) of the songs that pop out of my mouth.
It isn't like I actively think, "Oh boy, I love Seal's "A Kiss From A Rose" and it is now time for me to sing it loudly while a group of co-workers legitimately cringe." These songs arrived in my mind - from a white cassette tape, or a terrible super hero film or a just multiple consumptions of animated classics - at just the right time and they got in there deep. When these songs emerge from me, they aren't conscious creatures, they are the hibernated monsters waiting for a new light to wash over their slumber forms. One minute I am perfectly content listening to moody rap music or twangy soft rock, happily assured of my confidence in my own musical identity and then, boom, fucking Aladdin is hard-charging out of me.
And these aren't the only songs or the only sounds wrapped up inside of me. Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" was the rhythm in which I thought for years and I was certain I'd never even heard the song. There are moments where I will not only croon a sliver of Alanis Morrissette's "Ironic" but I will do so as if someone is rewinding me in slo-mo. I will beatbox (horribly, terribly, miserably) the beginning of rap songs that I am positive do not exist only to find that like McCartney's Christmas miracle, they are fully fleshed out jams that must've passed ever-so-briefly through me at some formative moment.
My brain is a jukebox that's been kicked a few too many times by Drunk Jimmy and now, thirty-seven years after it was installed is, without anyone dumping any quarters in, spitting out a jittery sample platter of musical treats. I go back and forth between fear and wonder about this sonic confetti that spews out of me. Fear because it feels like my brain is softer and more fluid each and every day, that the structural containment of my mental cage is breaking down and the neurological cover band called Noah Sanders Is A Little Crazy is playing the fucking hits. But wonder because every time a song surprises me as it rolls off my tongue uninvited, I wonder what else might be locked in the grey matter. What have I crammed into my mind and where did it go and why does the old thought box take it upon itself to remind me of its presence every once in a while? Better yet: what kind of magical device is this grey spongy mass between my ears? And I how do I use it more better?
I don't need an answer. Hell, I don't want one. Because if this is (and it is) a lifelong degradation of my mind that leads to the forgotten music of my life slipping back out into the world, I'll take it. I will take it because it is so rarely I am surprised by anything these days and if this surprise can be derived by my own past, hell, even better.
