The Power of Music
Yesterday on NPR’s Talk of the Nation I heard and interesting story on the effects of music you love on your heart. This isn’t the first time I heard of head-heart connections, but it was the first time I have ever heard it qualified with music. The study in the story basically found if you listen to music you love, you get the same kind of physical reactions you get from exercise. They reasoned this is why you always feel better after having heard one of your favorite songs.
To be fair said any sort of pleasurable activity could bring about these sorts of physical head-heart reactions and that they really weren’t sure why yet. There was some suggestions that it might be an endorphin release. On the flip side of this was if you listen to music you dislike it had measurable adverse reactions. The other oddity was if you like the music you can get desensitized and lose the effect, but if you disliked the music the adverse grew. This would explain why everyone in retail is so bitch by Christmas, just think how many times a day they hear the same damned Christmas songs, starting in about mid October.
To avoid the desensitizing effect of your favorite music they suggest going two weeks between listenings. I can easily buy that, there were plenty of songs on the radio in the eighties and nineties that I quickly grew tired of. However when I hear them by chance or choice today I find myself in one of my happy youthful places, it is even better when I get to sing along, something Katy has forbidden me to do publicly and sometimes even privately. I can’t wait until she goes back to work.
What was odd while writing this I happened to see Google Trends and was surprised to see how many musical and lyrical searches were hot at the moment. I was instantly interested in Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” which was being searched for under “in your eyes lyrics“. Rock of Ages was being searched out. While not in reference to Def Leopard’s Rock of Ages I still felt something emotional pull about for the music and actually made me say “Gunter glieben glauten globen”. What I couldn’t fathom was why anyone would search for the “Brady Bunch lyrics“. This is a song you should know by heart even if you hate the retched thing. More lyrical searches included “pretty young thing lyrics“. It isn’t a song I am familiar with but I do like pretty young things so I will have to have a more detailed search later. Still other lyric searches brought out “Hold Me Now lyrics”, this Thompson Twin’s song was popular when I had ny first big crush on a girl and just thinking about actually proves a head-heart-head connection. Thinking of her when we were nine and what we tried then doesn’t do much for me now, except prove my wife’s point I have been a pervert all my life, however thinking about her when we were eight certainly did more than stir parts of heart. The last Google Trends search that peaked my interest here was “tell me some good lyrics”.
In the spirit of that last request tell me some of your favorite lyrics.
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What Are You Listening Too?
Most of the people who come to The Other Blog love music but hate commercial radio. I can sympathies with that. While many of you may notice I discover a lot of my favorite artists on NPR shows like All Songs Considered, NPR Song of the Day, or Excursions a show on my local NPR station WYSO, there is plenty more good stuff to be listened to either by turning on your radio or listening to podcasts or live streams from the stations themselves.
Here is my list of the best NPR you can listen to on your computer.
· Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me hosted by Peter Sagal. A news quiz is always fun, but there isn’t a better one in my opinion that this one. With games like Who’s Carl This Time?, Bluff The Listener, and Not My Job which is played with a celebrity. This weeks Not My Job was played with Stephen King. Read more
