MindComet

Music, How You Soothe Me

Lately, I’ve been feeling all off kilter…. catawampus if you will.  So I decided I would put my iTunes library to use and created a “Jenny Gets Her Bearings“ playlist.  The criteria for this list was simple… All songs had to “speak” to me.  I know that sounds silly but that was how I decided on which of my 1347 songs made it to my new playlist.  Ordinarily, I would say that having 1347 songs was a little gratuitous, but many of them were songs in albums that I bought because I liked one or two songs on said album.  I’ve now since changed my strategy, much to the chagrin of the record industry, and only buy individual songs.  But enough about my shopping habits…

The songs in my new playlist are there specifically because they make me happy in some way.  Some are peppy, like Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” and The White Stripes “My Doorbell”.  Some are angry and aggressive like Green Day’s “American Idiot” or Rage Against the Machine’s “Freedom”.  Others are mellow, like Corey Crowder’s “Learning to Let Go” and Plain White T’s “Hey There Delilah”.  Some just are songs that I love and can’t really explain why like Jack Johnson’s “With My Own Two Hands”, Linda Ronstadt’s “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” - yeah it’s a Christmas song and not the only one on the list - and Johnny Cash’s cover of “In My Life”.

All in all, there are 152 songs in my new playlist and I’m currently playing then in Artist alphabetical order.  Right at this moment (July 28, 2009 at 10:00am) I am on the G’s and listening to Green Day’s “Before the Lobotomy”.  For all of you who may be curious, the last song in the alpha list is 311’s cover of “Summertime”.  As this playlist is the musical equivalent of my spiritual DNA (yeah, upon second read that is a very confusing statement, but one that I stand by and won’t change) it is helping me regain my balance.  I would recommend you create your own spiritual DNA salve-like playlist.  Let me know how it makes you feel.

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Posted by Jennifer Carey on Jul. 28, 2009