Five Crazy Things: Mood Music

While the cats are away, Day 2: Welcome, Dawn!

Dawn: Before we get started here, I’d like to thank Barb and Deb for asking me if I’d like to write something while they were going to be away. I was thrilled they asked, they were thrilled I said yes. Here’s the result of the thrilling love-fest:

A lot of the Olympic athletes have been shown listening to iPods in between races or meets or whatever. Does anyone else here wonder what they’re listening to, or why? Does it relax them? Does it motivate them? Does it annoy the crap out of them and give them something stupid to distract themselves with while waiting around for their turn? It could be any or all of the above. Point is, it's obviously doing SOMETHING for them. 

What 5 songs motivate you? Pick you up when you’re down? Just make you jump up and dance?

I also call this list “Five songs I never skip over when they come up on the iPod or radio.”

1. “Come Sail Away” by Styx (1977).  I discovered Styx in high school. One of the songwriters, Dennis DeYoung, is damn good at putting how I feel into words with fantastic music. This is definitely one of his best. (Plus, piano!)

2. “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey.  Journey’s “Escape” and Foreigner’s “4” albums were the first true rock BAND albums I owned. (Before that, it was all K-tel.) This song is what got me singing into a lipstick-tube microphone for the first time. (And it has piano!)

3. “Freeze Frame” by J. Geils. Poppy, funky, pointless FUN. The video was fun. (Anyone remember a bunch of guys in white overalls throwing paint splats all over a white set?) The beat is fun, and it makes my mood FUN. I love it love it love it.

4. “Walking in Memphis” by Mark Cohn. This is the song I believe I sing better than any other song. Best listened to in the car by myself. ;) (And, more piano!)

5. “It Don’t Make Sense (You Can’t Make Peace)” by Styx (2006). Dennis DeYoung and the rest of Styx “divorced” in 1999. The recreated Styx covered, and seriously reworked, this song and turned it into something whose funky sound is stuck firmly in my head.

Okay? Ready, set, go!

Barbara: Oooh, I love this topic, Dawn, because a) I wondered the same thing about the athletes, and b) I definitely have specific mood music.

1. “Song 2” by Blur, for getting motivated (cliché, I know, but it was my gear-up song waaaay before the sports arenas adopted it).

2. “Bohemian Like You” by the Dandy Warhols. This song just makes me feel happy and good and ready for anything.

3. “Wolf Like Me” by TV on the Radio. For power. Oooh, yeah.

4. “Cosmic Love” by Florence and the Machine. For working. For uplifting. Ready for everything/anything. “I Will Wait”, a new song by Mumford & Sons, is doing it for me in this regard too.

5. “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails. For feeling sorry for myself. Which sometimes hurts so good. Johnny Cash’s version works too.