Analog, Magnetic Biosphere
Do songs appear in your mind for no apparent reason? For me, they creep up in pieces, materializing bit by bit, melody, lyrics, and musical hooks slowly pulling together. Yesterday morning, Be My Baby, by the Ronettes showed up, and before I knew it, I had all of the melody and most of the lyrics. The joy and sweetness of Ronnie Spector’s voice churned in my head along with my childhood crush, and I wondered what triggered the memory?
They feel like fragments of a dream and must be symbolic in some way. After all, doesn’t the mind work by association? So what is the red thread that ties it all together? Maybe it’s a mood that reminds me of a melody, a sweet sadness like “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” or a Latin hymn “Tantum Ergo Sacramentum,” sitting in a church pew next to my mom eating Alphabets from my sister’s toy purse. Or is it a fragment of a lyric that begins to unwind the song in my mind?
What’s attached to these songs, and why now? There has to be a reason. Maybe it’s like a message in a bottle, unknowingly sent by me to my future self. Corked up safely and tossed in the ocean years ago, and arriving right on time.