An ode to the musically schizophrenic.
As I was walking home in the rain, properly caffeine’d up after my first gingerbread coffee of the season (Oh, what a dangerous addiction to reawaken…), I was contemplating vaguely what to give myself dead thumbs over tonight. (Should end tomorrow night provided Comcast doesn’t up and change their minds, cross your fingers!)
And I realized as I was doing that, I was doing it again. That thing. That thing so many of us do in this age of perpetual ADD, that drains the battery of mp3 players faster than a speeding bullet. I was hitting the button to flip through tracks every .02 seconds.
That got me thinking about my choices in music. When people ask me what I like, I tell them the blunt, honest truth; “I don’t know, whatever moves me.”
This is sometimes taken as code for “I really just don’t know.” or “Sara’s just being weird again.” and I’m not particularly concerned about this. It’s one of the few facets of my life where I don’t feel the least bit self conscious. (My film knowledge a close second, only because I tend to get a smidge flustered when I think I’ve seen a bucketload of movies, and someone goes “BUT WHY HAVEN’T YOU SEEN _____????!!!!”.)
My claim towards my musical proclivity is true; if it strikes a note (pun not intended, I swear) then I like it. Sometimes it’s Foster the People, sometimes it’s Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, sometimes it’s Tchaikovsky. To some this implies a lack of identity; there’re people who sit firmly in their little country music or alterna-rock camps, and will keep to their comfort zone until the day they die so help them christ, and God help you if you should ever try to play them anything else Jesustapdancingchristyoubetterbelieveit!
… Yeah. I don’t think that’s for me.
This is not to say everything ‘moves’ me. There’s a chunk of modern music that I can’t stand naturally, because it has about as much to say as a Miley Cyrus movie (or music, take your pick), and of course my sisters love it. This serves no other purpose than making me feel old before my time. (That, and the state of kid shows today, from cartoons to everything else. If that isn’t worth a sob or six…)
But I’m always open to trying something new, and I think it serves to help me out every now and again. It influences my writing (one even led to a very disturbing script for a short as a writing exercise – “Help, I’m Alive” by Metric, in case you’re interested), my moods (although sometimes it serves to amplify them, for better or worse), gets me through the daily commute and schlepping around Boston, and a whole slew of other things.
And I think that’s my ‘musical identity’, if a label must be slapped on the thing. Wild Card. Granted, this will not be what I pass around on my business cards, or throw up on my Facebook page or Twitter profile. Though I could see it now; “I’m the Wild Card, bitch.”
Zuckerberg, eat your heart out.
Besides, I think ‘Musically Schizophrenic’ is a lot more fun to say. If I must get strange looks, let it be for something I will giggle over when I say it. Otherwise, it’s just not worth it.
So to those of you skate up and down that board instead of falling into a particular hole, there’s your label too. Set your media player on shuffle and soak in the musical knotlike goodness.
You know you want to.
Abrasive Enough 