Complex Numbers

Driver's Seat

It shouldn't surprise anyone to know that music is, indeed, very important to me.

PROMPT July 17th

How important is the role of music in your life and in your creative process? Do you write to music? If so, what kind and why do you think it helps?

There was a prompt here a while back that asked the age-old question: if you had to choose between losing sight or hearing, which would you choose? And it was a difficult choice because, while I dislike about 75% of all sounds, the other 25% is music and I'd hate to live without that. On the other hand, I couldn't play video games if I were blind.

Anyway, this prompt isn't that one, but I mention that to illustrate my mindset when it comes to sounds. I've known people who insist on having the TV on all the time for "background noise." This is anathema to me. If I want sound in the background, it's going to be music, not some jibber-jabber on the boob tube.

Another thing that surprised me when I found out about it is the number of people who don't listen to lyrics. I seriously can't wrap my head around that. While all aspects of music work together, I need to know what the lyrics are, and they'd better have some meaning or I won't like the song. This doesn't apply to instrumentals, obviously.

I've tried writing with music playing and without, and I can't say that it's made much of a difference. These days, mostly I just listen to music when I feel like it, which is not all the time. I'm perfectly content with silence, and I can usually tune out ambient noise except when the fucking neighbor mows their goddamn lawn three times a week.

There is one situation, though, when music is absolutely essential to me, and that is when I'm driving.

10 years ago this month, when I bought my current car, lots of things sold me on it, but the most important feature to me was its face-melting sound system. For the first time in my life, I wouldn't have to mortgage my house to pay someone to install an aftermarket stereo. One time, I bought a car at auction for $340, an old Toyota that was only firing on three cylinders and had exposed springs in the driver's seat, but it ran, and the very first thing I did was drive across the street to Crutchfield to buy a $900 stereo system with surround-sound speakers and a subwoofer that didn't really fit in the trunk but I made it work anyway.

Priorities, you know.

I know a lot of people prefer to listen to talk radio or audiobooks while driving, but to me those require too much concentration. Music fills the idle hole in my brain that's left over when driving only takes up a portion of my attention (albeit the main portion), while still letting my mind wander sometimes and get ideas.

Trying to imagine doing my cross-country road trips without music is like trying to imagine a movie without actors.

A long time ago, I had the idea to include a different song with every blog entry, but by the time I got back to blogging, other people had already run with the idea, so I only pursue it sometimes. But because it's appropriate, today I'll leave you with this, one of my all-time favorite songs:

So pick up your feet
got to move to the trick of the beat
there is no elite
just take your place in the driver's seat.