I always have music playing—unless I’m reading or writing. While I clean, while I research, while I complete creative projects, and while I drive, music is either tinkling in the background or vibrating the speakers. Music is life’s great equalizer, stabilizing emotions, instigating mindfulness, and putting a positive spin on whatever awaits after the music stops.
Music has the power to alter my moods, especially in the mornings, on those rainy days and Mondays when one must work. Whatever song I hear that speaks to me, the one I leave on the station, sets the tone for the day.
I have a short commute. Even if I’m stuck at the red light that will never turn green, my commute is the length of one full song—longer than “I Love Rock N Roll” but shorter than “Bohemian Rhapsody.” It’s important to find that perfect song each morning, the one I want to leave my car singing as I walk into work, which is a juvenile detention center. I’m the everything-but-math teacher. With only three long class periods and little variety, my days are either tediously long or run-around-like-a-chicken-with-my-head-cut-off short. I’ll never know what kind of morning will greet me: I could have six new students and four releases or have the same roster I left the day before. The board might be filled with confinements or wiped clean without incident. There is zero way for me to prepare for my days. I have little control over decisions and have learned it’s best not to argue with contradictory information, hypocrisy, or favoritism. Just show up, do my job, and leave as unfrazzled as possible so that I can enjoy my evening without burning up all my energy at work. Music is my tool to put me in the right headspace for the next eight hours.
On my short drive to work, I submit my control and fall to the mercy of Sirius XM radio. At home, I only listen to my meticulously crafted playlists: mostly Eighties and Nineties that I can shuffle or listen to in order of release date. Some are categorized by feelings: calming, motivating, inspiring, happy, or love. Other playlists might be designed around current favorites or instrumental or artist or year. I don’t use streaming services, instead purchasing songs, so that I have them on my computer, so that listening to music is not dependent upon the internet or a streaming service’s availability or song catalog. I rarely purchase songs anymore, having little interest in teeny-bopper music or Taylor Swift. When I drive, I like the randomness of the radio, never knowing what might play, the surprise of which is half the delight.
I drive a teeny tiny car, a two-seater convertible, and sound readily fills the small space as I blare the radio, joyfully singing along. Each song provides its own style of uplifting my mood, or waking me up, or taking my mind away from the act of work.
Some of my favorites are the annoying ones, the giggle-worthy songs that became obnoxious during their heyday but are now delightful singalongs: “I Wanna Sex You Up,” “The Safety Dance,” and “Girl You Know It’s True.”
Then there’s the energizing ones, the songs that make you feel like you can conquer anything: “Burn It to the Ground,” “The Kill,” and “You’re Going Down.”
Dance music always makes me groove: “Mr. Vain,” “Yeah,” and “Hey Mama.” But it’s even more fun when I can imitate the dance moves while I’m stuck at the red light: “Vogue,” “1999,” “Beat It.”
Love songs make me wistful: “In Your Eyes,” “I’ll Be,” “Crazy for You.”
Anything by Matchbox 20 (or is it Twenty?)/Rob Thomas is always a plus.
On rare occasions, I fashion sad songs: “Everybody Hurts,” “Rainy Days and Mondays,” or “Iris.”
Other times, I think sing it, sister, as Susanna Hoffs describes a “Manic Monday” or the lead singer of All American Rejects “Gives You Hell” with his face.
Some songs are just more fun to blare than others—and the louder the music, the more it wakes me up: “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” “Hey Ya,” or “Right Now.”
And then of course, Richard Marx, whom is always a delight. (Please don’t say, “Richard who?”)
(The mornings when Sirius won’t load in my car or my car decides to reboot is a very silent, sad morning for me. Although I like Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence,” I do not enjoy the silence on my morning drive to work.)
If the song ends as I’m parking my car, I switch to another station. The key is to have a song in its middle, so that I can continue singing as I walk to the door. Hence, it must be a song I know well enough to sing without the song as a backup. The doors at JDC are not the kind one can just open: I push a button and then wait. Some mornings, the wait is one second, while others, I have to push the button twice. I keep singing, but more hushed now, as I wouldn’t want to be deemed crazy, although nowadays with everyone walking around in public with an earpiece talking to people we can’t see, why would singing be deemed any less public-appropriate?
I keep singing as I enter the back entryway, through another locked door (this one I can open myself), into the staff breakroom, unlock another door myself, then enter the big open space that serves as the cafeteria. I finally stop singing as someone lets me into the back console, where I pick up my purple key set, my group sheet, then back through the cafeteria to enter into Classroom Number 2, which leads into my classroom—Number 3, and into my office. I whip out my phone, open up the Sirius XM app, and find a new song until I have my classroom all set for the day.
I lecture my students for having zero variety in their music selection, filthy songs about drugs, sex, and violence that can only be found on YouTube, never heard on the radio. They would know not what a radio is nowadays if a little miniature radio wasn’t an incentive, something they can earn for their room. We forget the power of music, how it alters our mood, how we might not want to listen to sad songs on repeat or rap songs about drugs and guns. I contend if more people listened to music as they drove, they might not have as much road rage (and then they wouldn’t be on their phones while driving, so they wouldn’t give me the finger when I kindly give them the horn when they haven’t moved five seconds after the light has turned green).
Music turns those frowns upside down, those workday doldrums into manageable mayhem, those stuck in traffic moments of rage into merry mindfulness. Even if it won’t be “The Best Day of My Life,” it’s going to be a better day now that I’ve heard such a song.
Try it sometime. I dare you not to giggle and feel energized at 7:30 in the morning after listening to Devo’s “Whip It.”