If you’ve ever done work around your house on your own – replacing electrical outlets/switches, simple plumbing, rotten-wood repair – you know it can be exhilarating when you actually fix something and infuriating when you haven’t.
Happened to me Saturday when trying to fix problems with two rooms in my house that suddenly didn’t have power. All-day work. No success.
Needing something to soothe my seriously raw nerves, I retired to the patio with an adult beverage and turned on my outside stereo. The question was: What to listen to? Something aggressive and forceful to match my feelings or something nice and soothing to tamp them down?
I went for aggressive and forceful with melodic punk band Bad Religion. It worked. Music has charms to soothe the savage beast, or so the idiom goes, but in this case, it kept that savagery up until it popped like a balloon and released.
It got me thinking about the power of music to mirror your feelings, whether ticked off, dancing-about happy or boo-hoo sad. I’d like to hear from you what music you turn to when things are good, bad or just “there.” I’ll put together a column with your comments.