To the point, for a change.

Day five of the 30-apparently-not-consecutive-day song challenge, and I’m tasked with writing about a song that reminds me of someone, so this one's for Dad. I'd like to wish him a happy Fathers' Day. We played this at his funeral. Always one of his fave's, and mine.

A slightly belated, very inebriated happy Fathers' Day to all the dads out there.

All this and brains too.

So the 30-day song thingie I’ve been doing wants to know what song makes me sad. I could easily post a song that evokes painful memories, but I’m more interested at the moment in what makes a song sad.

Here’s a little experiment for all you would-be thespians out there. I’m going to give you a single line to say, and I want you to say it out loud as though you’ve got great news you’re dying to share with someone.

The line is, “We need to talk.”

Go ‘head. Say it again. Repeat it a few times. More excitement. Think of the best news you could possibly receive right now. Method act by winning the lottery if you have to. Ignore your roommates’ cries of, “What? What? What the fuck do we need to talk about? I’m listening. Oh, for Christ’s sake just tell me!”

Now I’m going to give you a little more direction. Say the same line as if you’re about to deliver bad news. You’re about to tell someone her mother died.

So naturally your voice softens, and maybe you talk a bit slower. Maybe you take a slight pause first. The actual pitch is different. Most people lower their pitch ever so slightly, usually at the word “talk.”

It makes sense that we would use changes of pitch in language to convey emotion, but what really puts the zap on my head is how it translates to music. You remember the old, “do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-do” scale that kinda hot woman taught you in elementary school music class? Turns out that’s not the only scale out there.

If you sing the “me”, “la” and “ti” just semitone lower, you’re switching from a major to a minor scale. It’s the scale that mimics what our voices do when we’re sad. Music betrays is roots as a cousin of language.

Cool, huh?

So here's David Gilmour playing guitar in the key of A minor to make us all sad. Enjoy.

And if you're interested in this sort of thing and you've got an hour to spare, here's the raw footage of Richard Dawkins interviewing Steven Pinker on the origins of music, language and other weirdness. If you need a human brain in a jar at a moment's notice, Pinker's always got one handy.

A quick one while he's away...

Day three, and it’s become extremely apparent this 30-day song challenge thingie is not for the pedantic, stoned philosopher.

“A song that makes you happy,” it says.

“Happy,” as opposed to what?

In philosophy, we call this sort of thing the fallacy of the complex question. I’ll give you my favourite example, taken from a book I bought when I was 17 entitled,

There are two errors in the
the title of this book.

(This book, by the way, influenced the course of my life more than any I’ve ever read, but that’s a whole other entry. By the way, Ryan Johnson, if you’re reading this, I want my fucking book back. Isn’t there something in that other book you’re fond of about not stealing. You’ve got some repenting to do, my friend. In God’s eyes, borrowing a book and never giving it back is just as bad as abortion, homosexuality and wearing cotton blends.)

But I digress. The complex question goes like this, “Have you stopped robbing banks?”

There’s no right way to answer. It’s a cheat. “What song makes you happy?” presupposes there’s some song that makes you happy.

“If people evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?”* (By the way, if anyone other than your own mother says this to you, he or she is a fuckwit and the only response is to point and laugh hysterically.)

The complex question assumes facts not established. I’ve never robbed a bank; we’re apes, not monkeys; and there isn’t a song that makes me happy.

I listen to a shitload of music. As I’m reading this, I’m listening to “When I Get Home” by the Beatles. It’s just kinda on the ol’ iTunes random shuffle. Never to listened to the lyrics before. Kinda typical, early-Beatles, pop filler, but the delivery is killer. Neat structure. And I like that it’s a bit angry. He’s not talking to the girl, but to someone who’s taking up the time he’d rather spend with her, and he wants them to fuck off so he can go get laid. Great song, now that I really listen to it. Don’t know why I never payed attention to it until now. Maybe because it’s followed by "You Can’t Do That," the closest the Beatles ever got to equaling the Stones in terms of playing loose but not sloppy.

Jesus, where was I?

Hey, I ain’t writing for money anymore, and I don’t have a word limit, so you’ll just have to take a few tangents here and there, baby. The herbal jazz ain’t helping matters either, nor is the vintage Jethro Tull that just came up in my iTunes not-so-random setting.

Stream-of-consciousness writing is dangerous territory. Best take stock of possible tangents and save the ideas for later entries I’ll never get around to writing.

Never gonna get around to writing about the time I got my head too close to a piano and Nicky Hopkins did something to my brain.
Jethro Tull were fucking awesome in the ‘60s.
What the two errors in the title of that that (sic) book were, and how the second one changed my life forever.
How I love having friends who are dying to know what the second error is (time to start commenting, folks).
How I, a devout atheist, got to be best man for and best friends with an evangelical Christian.
How great the Beatles were around ‘64-66.
How there are no random numbers, except for all of them.

But seriously, folks, I listen to a shitload of music. If I’m not playing it, I’m probably listening to it. But honestly, I don’t know if music makes me happy. The question doesn’t really specify what I was before I started listening. Was I pissed off? Music isn’t going to make me happy if I’m seriously pissed off. How pissed off was I? Did I just bang my thumb with a hammer, or am I just experiencing a moment of ennui?

What if I was happy before I heard the song, and the song made me happier? Does that count, ‘cause I think that’s exactly the kind of song I’m about to pick.

So, struggling with precise definitions for a third time (but the second day in a row), I’ll once again go with something more or less arbitrary and say, if this doesn’t make you happier, you probably weren’t happy in the first place.

Enjoy, babies.

And I suppose you update your blog every god-damned day!

Yeah, the dates between entries show there's a story there somewhere, and I plan to tell it one day, but not right now.

So where was I? Oh yeah, the 30-day song challenge that stumped me from day one. They wanted to know my favourite song, but I had to interpret the question, “‘A favourite of mine.’ One of many. No hierarchy among them.”

So now the bastards want to know my least favourite. Christ, weren’t they listening? The least of a group that has no hierarchy?

I like the wording though. It’s not asking the song I hate the most, but the least of my favourites. At least that means I still get to post a song I love.

I’m gonna have to go with this little gem from 1961, Mr. Roy Lee Johnson with "Mr. Moonlight." Catchy little tune, ruined for me by that diabolical Beatles version on the B side of Beatles for Sale like a giant scratch on a vintage Cadillac. To think Johnson’s minimal, tremelo-laden guitar solo was replace by Paul McCartney clamoring away on that fucking church organ like he’s wearing boxing gloves.

So here’s the original version of another one of my favourites (the least of which is still fantastic). Sit back and dig this...