Recently I had a the opportunity to interview the wonderful Amanda D. Paulson for my podcast, The AP Strange Show, wherein we discussed her theories about Paranormal Emotive Touchpoints. You can check it out here:
Part of the conversation involved one of the main "Odd Emotions" Paulson describes as being useful in contacting the Other Side- Nostalgia- and in particular how one might use media such as movies or music to provoke the feeling. Since recording, then editing and releasing the episode, I've been thinking in particular about how much music informs both the psychical and mundane aspects of our existence here on Earth. So, whether you've listened to the show or not (I humbly recommend that you do...) here's a few thoughts.
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Music and the industry around it is largely built upon happenstance. The music that resonates with you largely has to do with where and when you were born, your family or other early influences, and the culture surrounding you. In a broader sense, for songs and musical artists, there are many examples throughout history of songs that become surprise hits or seem to capture a moment in time outside of anyone planning for them to do so. Songs can have deeply personal meanings, as well as widely recognized importance. Sometimes a song can remain fairly obscure for decades, then suddenly become popular for its use in a movie soundtrack. Think of "Stuck in the Middle With You" by Stealer's Wheel, and how much of a boost that song got from being featured in an infamous scene in Reservoir Dogs. The strange path the song took into many psyches and into the collective unconscious, with additional grim meanings attached to it, is really pretty strange- and very similar to how synchronicity tends to work.
If you think too hard about synchronicity, you might come around to considering what causal mechanism exists behind it- if any. For the more puzzling and strong synchronicities, it boggles the mind to think about all of the events that had to take place in just the right order, at just the right time and place, so that they'd line up with where you are at that moment to appreciate it. Of course its easy to drive oneself crazy noting such things, but there are patterns out there. It's not always clear why and how, and as long as you have stable footing its enough to know that they're there.
When it comes to music and associated media, one is able to track possible meanings and moments in time in which a song, artist, or album would have been culturally significant. It's not always obvious, however, and examples that might fly under the radar can, perhaps, show how both mundane and psychical effects can be wrought from an unassuming song. In thinking about this, I came up with the example of a viral video from the dark ages of five or six years ago.
Given the disposable nature of online content these days, it's easy to forget some viral moments- and even easier to miss it entirely, especially if you avoid social media. But in fall of 2021, one man's selfie while skateboarding and sipping his juice captured a moment when so many people had their lives upturned by a worldwide pandemic. Something about this dude cruising along, in a short form video on a rapidly growing social media outlet, struck a chord with millions of people. It spawned imitators for months, and- pertinent to our subject here- drove up sales and streams of the featured song, Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams".
No one could have foreseen that a hit songs from 1977 would suddenly become very relevant, least of all because of a context-free video of a man skating along swigging back cranberry juice, during a time of upheaval and anxiety for many. The song was already well known, of course, and held very personal meanings for people of all ages. For those who were around to hear it upon its initial release, it meant one thing, for others perhaps it was a song their parents loved. The album it comes from, Rumours, is considered a classic and seems to rise and fall in popularity with listeners around the world. Regardless of the personal attachments however, the song is seemingly imprinted now with a singular moment in time. A time of chaos and uncertainty, and an oasis of calm in the form of a carefree man "vibing" to it while skating along the edge of a highway.
Whether one believes in the psychical imprinting of the song and this moment, the mood it captured for millions left a mark- whether people remember why or not. It's entirely likely that this particular moment will be lost in the shuffle of online media to the point that no one will remember why they feel a certain somber wistfulness when they hear Stevie Nicks singing this song. Perhaps many of them were never aware of the viral video to begin with. I would contend that its irrelevant. The emotive imprint on the song is now mixed in, with the background vocals, like distant thunder in a rainstorm.
On a personal note, something I discovered about myself made me realize how sneaky music can be in how we respond to it. It connects various moments in time, and the order of those events becomes irrelevant because of music's ability to take one's consciousness outside of time itself. I'm reminded of the first time I listened to the album "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd, while up late at night sipping coffee and surreptitiously smoking cigarettes as a teenager in my friend's room. Hearing the synth-drenced main riff of "Have a Cigar" for the first time, while also experiencing the new-to-me chemical delight of caffeine and nicotine in tandem, felt revelatory. It felt like the coolest thing I had ever heard.
Later on I began to learn guitar and write songs for myself, and noticed a pattern. Songs in E Minor, especially ones that relied on an E minor which adds the 9- the F#, to the chord. The dissonance from the added note with the minor third, the G, activated some part of my nervous system in ways I couldn't explain. "Have a Cigar" more or less outlines this chord in that main riff, and although as a teen it was a new song to me, it had a nostalgic feeling attached to it. In learning to play guitar, I would get pointers from my mother. She had played since her teenage years, mostly for her church, but one of her favorite songs to play was "Diamonds and Rust" by Joan Baez. It was her go-to song when she was warming up or just making sure her old twelve string guitar was in tune. When she showed me how to pick the intro to that song, and when I learned how to play the aforementioned Floyd tune, it clicked- it was the same chord. Something about that chord had stuck with me, possibly from the time I was in the womb. My mom had probably picked out those notes plenty of times while I was gestating, and the notes became a part of me. Even if this is too far fetched, I had heard the song as a small child and notably in the album version there is also synthesizer, which probably triggered the feeling as well.
"Diamonds and Rust" and "Have a Cigar" are very different songs. The connection isn't entirely obvious, and probably something I never would have figured out had I not decided to learn guitar for myself. Without any doubt, both songs and the chord in question hit tons of other people in their own unique ways, but somewhere between that F# and G note there exists a secret tone which unites a multitude of consciousnesses and moments in time. For me at least, the vibration of it connects distinct moments in my life in a bittersweet way- and I have little doubt that it connects me to other minds like the sympathetic strings on a harp. I'm sure that other music lovers and musicians could find their own examples, and hopefully this inspires you.
*** Additional notes:
That last video is a song I wrote using the aforementioned EmAdd9 chord.
I am not a big music theory guy. If I got anything wrong about how tones work, don't @ me as the kids used to say.
"Stuck in the Middle With You" has an additional weird story attached- for a period of a year or so I seemed to be living in an alternated dimension wherein that song was a little slower, sung in a different register, and lacking background vocals. It was unnerving, kind of a Mandela Effect moment, as I seemed to be the only one who noticed. Eventually it went back to normal. No idea what that was about.