Sometimes, I get non-musical earworms (the other day I had the name Jaqen H’ghar going round and round all morning), and one of my most common is Nick Hornby’s “Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?” It rattles back and forth inside my brain, serving no purpose but to remind me that I should avoid sad music, for the instant and crippling effect it has on me. Is that just how ears and brains work? Even if I’m in the jolliest mood in the world, a few bars of On and On by Longpigs will have me bed-ridden for days. Is that usual? I’ll wake up craving some NIN but once I actually put it on I’ll not be able to speak for a couple of hours. That’s how music and humans function, right?
All of this is just to say that when I’m attending my father’s cremation tomorrow and the sky is beige and weeping, I probably shouldn’t have picked up a Tori Amos CD.