Some Song I Used To Hear Back Then

I admit that one of my favoritest parts of producing a radio show is finding that mid-break song that echoes the week's theme, adding a dash of comic relief to the heavier shows or a dose of gravitas to the lighter ones. Then, I will inevitably end up down the enticing musical rabbit hole in the name of work and then five or ten or twenty three songs later... I'm listening to opera or discovering Brazilian triphop or remembering how I used to really dig Kim Deal and the crunchy guitars of the early 90s.

This next one is obvious - for "The Sex Talk" show it's clearly the Salt N Pepa classic, right. But, just to sort of look into other, less obvious choices, I've searched terms like "talk" and "listen" and "here for you" and so now, led astray, I'm listening to heart-exploding opera - how does that happen - specifically Turandot and the never-fails-to-timelessly-kill yet modern song, Time to Say Goodbye. 

[Pause.]

A few years ago I wore red pants to dinner with an old friend and his new girlfriend who was a music supervisor in Hollywood. This was back when all my friends and acquaintances, to some varying cinematic degree, worked in Hollywood doing something hollywoody, and I was rarely impressed by their proximity to stars, free cereal bars at work, car services. That night, though, I remember eating al fresco while feeling cute in my red pants and also really coveting the new girlfriend's job - really, that's a thing you get paid for? - picking music for a movie? I think we went for drinks after at our local Irish-themed pub and I paid for song after song on the jukebox whilst we played pool. "I can pick songs too," thought twenty-year old me.

I'm just so moved by music. Like nothing else. That's all. If I could get paid for doing that, what makes me feel most alive - wouldn't that be the grand end all of doing what you love I suppose?

Lately I've been listening to rediscovered gems I'd forgotten to even look up, but the songs that when you hear them randomly cue up all the words and music memories are remembered back like back of hands.

For instance, the Notwist came up while loading the dishwasher the other night - Things look much bigger on your knees, on your knees. And all of the sudden you're one with the freaks. Have you ever, have you ever been all messed up? (p.s. this video is genius.) Then this: I used to hear some song I used to hear back then, a long time ago comes on and those are really the lyrics, from Peter, Bjorn and John - And the question is was I more alive than the night now, I happily have to disagree - I laugh more often now, I cry more often now, I am more free.

Oh, alright. Here's one more that I heard while meeting in a coffee shop earlier this week - PJ Harvey and Thom Yorke - No need for words for now. We sit in silence. You look me in the eye directly. I think It's Wednesday. The mess we're in. The city sun set over me. I used to listen to this song on a rooftop while the sun set over me, thinking about all the places I would go; all the messes I'd get into and out of; all the Wednesdays that'd come and go, grasping and letting go all the time in the world, clenched fists then open hands.

And that's how music does it, you know, takes me right back in time, a visit to a memory theater when the city overwhelmed a young springy self, happy-drunk on citylife and I couldn't think about tomorrow for all the noise, but I also couldn't not think about tomorrow because all the cacophony excited me to make something the next day, something noisy and also something gentle that lets someone else know they've been understood.