iPods on the Subway: Making A Soundtrack for Your Life

I love the subway, especially in NYC – the variety and spice, smells and sounds attack and challenge all the senses and evoke every emotion. Today, I got on at Wall Street and off at Penn Station – a 15 minute ride or so...I had my iPod on and was listening to a combination of Van Morrision, John Mayer and I think a Tom Petty song as well – generally mellow, rhythmic and soulful songs with ponderous lyrics. These fit my mood well – I had spent the day racing around NYC for a variety of meetings, and was tired, but satisfied with the day’s achievements and that I had done my part to make the world a better place for the day. 

I looked around at the other faces and bodies on the subway; the young hotshot bankers in expensive suits; the off duty policeman; the immigrant family and the deliberately angry city kids. So many stories, dreams and as many heartbreaks. You can really feel people’s emotions on the subway...people let their guard down in a strange way once they sit down – they focus internally and with little else to do but watch the stations go by, I feel that there is a meditative state the people enter which you can tune into, especially at the end of a long day where the weariness further erodes people’s ability to hold up the façade that life is anything but a daily struggle to do your best to overcome.

I noted a number of other people also listening to iPods or the like...I found myself wondering what kinds of music they might be choosing to be the soundtrack to their life...happy or sad, fast or slow, painful or playful. I think everyone should have a soundtrack to their life – it makes everything seem that much more vital, more connected and elevates even the little pieces of life to a meaningful status. In the movies, as the characters are driving around town with the soundtrack playing, a task we all do each day with little fanfare or meaning, the cruising makes sense as a backdrop to where the actors are going to, or coming from and alerts us to any danger, excitement or emotions that the scene is meant to portray...music smooths over the voids that normally fill our life and give the little pieces meaning and cohesion. These pieces have meaning in our lives too, but its hard to remember that without the music playing...

Perhaps by choosing your own soundtrack, one can choose their response to all of life, both the mundane and meaningful, and shape a persona and path that is uniquely their’s. Perhaps. So fire up the iPod and put together your soundtrack – make it real, make it your’s, and make it loud.

Comments

[Paul]

Haven't been to your blog in a long time...read most of the articles...great stuff, easy to read, and very insightful...cool old fighter plane video.

I prefer open air to the confinement of a subway...a phobia to being enclosed I guess. I think you are right on about having a life soundtrack. When I run or bike I always have a tune in my head and it plays over and over and that becomes the soundtrack for that event in time. I won't go out if I have a song I don't care for stuck in my head because that drives me nuts. I purposefully don't have a music machine on my head when I'm in the open air, but I need to have music on when I'm on a treadmill, stationary bike, or driving in my car as it helps me enjoy the day. Weird how certain songs bring back specific memories of being with a certain person or a certain period in ones life.

Speaking of soundtracks, I love the beat of "Extreme Ways" that plays at the end of the "Bourne" movies. Kata and I went to a preview of the Bourne Ultimatum in Boise on 30JUL07 with Matt Damon and the producer in attendance. It was cool to see Matt walk down the Boise sidewalk while all us locals cheered him on. Before the movie started at the famous Egyptian Theater (next to the hockey rink downtown), he stated that if you had to go to the bathroom you'd better do it now because there was so much action in the 2 hour movie that you wouldn't want to get up. He wasn't kidding...awesome movie...and a great treat to see the movie with the star in the stands before the movie was released to the general public.

Link to song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2ZR_zl-JgY