Emotional Rollercoaster

[paulkincaid]

The whole point about songs is that they short circuit our emotions. So the problem with having my music on shuffle when I go for my regular walks is that I can go from one emotion to its opposite in a matter of moments. There are songs that, for very different reasons, make me cry, like "Harvest Moon" by Neil Young ("because I'm still in love with you, I want to see you dance again") or "The Whole of the Moon" by The Waterboys ("I see the rain-dirty valley, you see Brigadoon"). Equally there are songs that make me burst out laughing, like "Bank Job" by Barenaked Ladies ("a bank full of nuns") or "Beware of the Beautiful Stranger" by Pete Atkin ("behind me, the queue stretches right down the hall"); if either of those came on while we were driving I'd worry that Maureen would crash the car because she was always laughing so hard. And there are others that just evoke memories, like when we first heard "Walking in Memphis" by Marc Cohn at a cafe in Hythe, and came home and immediately bought everything by Cohn we could find. All of those songs came up on my walk this afternoon.