Blogocentric Formulations

Stutter

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Song: "Stutter"
Artist: Marianas Trench
Album: Ever After


I'm doing something I've never done in a Soundtrackers event before, which is steal a song from another blogger. And a member of my own "Invalid Item"  no less! Sorry, Dragon is hiding , but I just couldn't help myself. Ever since I listened to "Stutter" at the beginning of your Soundtrackers do Soundtracks week, I haven't been able to get the song out of my head! This has become my default pick-me-up song. Whether I'm getting tired of a droning audiobook on the drive home, or feeling that after-lunch lethargy at my desk at work, this is the song I put on to wake myself up (and get my toes tapping while I'm at it).

I don't know if it's just the energetic dancing in the video (is that the jitterbug? jive?), or the song itself... both both, but I really dig the energy. I tend to have a revolving door of songs I'll obsess over for several weeks at a time before another one eventually catches my interest, and this is my favorite "song of the moment." I've been listening to it pretty much nonstop for two weeks now, and I'm not even close to sick of it yet.

One of the things I realized in compiling and writing about songs for this "precious few" week is how many of the songs I was inclined to choose are generally upbeat, up-tempo, or generally positive. I've been thinking about that all week and I'm pretty sure that the reason I tend to gravitate toward positive or uplifting tracks is because I most often use music as an escape or a jump-starter when I want to get out of a bad mood. I'm a pretty optimistic, positive person in general and when I'm in a bad mood or a dark place, I want to get out of it as quickly as possible. As a result, I don't tend to like songs that either drag me back to that place or let me wallow there... instead I'll choose stuff that will pick me up and move me out of it. I don't really have any kind of musical aptitude of my own; I can't play any instruments and I'm 99% sure that I'm tone deaf which makes my singing abilities... well, probably on par with the American Idol audition rejects everyone laughs at for being so amusingly clueless about their singing abilities. Thankfully, I am well aware of how awful I am, so you won't see me wasting my time auditioning on any singing competition anytime soon.

Anyway, I digress. The point is that music is kind of sacred to me. It's something that I find incredibly evocative and impressive because it's one of the few things that I just flat-out suck at. So when I'm choosing songs or even just listening to music, I can appreciate the artistry of a downer of a song, or maybe even enjoy it for a short time, but chances are the songs that really stick with me day after day and year after year are going to be the songs that lift me up and pull me out of a dark place.