Soundtracks To Our Lives

I often wish my life had a soundtrack. Now, I’ve given it my best shot. Playing music wherever it’s possible, singing regardless of the social awkwardness it prompts in those around me. And I can't count the number of times I've felt like this. But it’s not the same. I want music to play from the heavens – mostly with lyrics, so I can sing along, but some instrumentals are okay, too.

In addition to making impromptu dance parties more understandable, this life soundtrack would serve the deeper purpose of informing people as to how they should feel in certain situations. Often the appropriate feeling for an event is easy enough to figure out. Person One hands you a giant ice cream cone: joy and rapture. Person Two knocks the ice cream cone out of your hand and then runs away laughing and waving his arms in the air: sorrow and rage. Easy peasy. No music required. But everyone has those moments where they think, How exactly am I supposed to react to this? Solution – life soundtrack.

No longer will you struggle with questions like: Is she serious? No, instead you’ll think: Damn, listen to that music. She’s not fooling around. Or: She expects me to believe that something’s wrong? Does she not hear those jovial strains playing around us? What a clown.

You get home from a long day of work and, as you turn the key to your door, ominous strains ring out. You drop your head to your chest for a second, thinking, Crap, would you listen to that? Someone’s totally going to jump out at me. Ah, well, I’ll just go wait in the car for the cops to arrive. Problem solved.

Or let’s say you’re having a bad day. Suddenly your soundtrack gets jauntier and you feel relief over the guarantee that things are going to get better soon. Or maybe the music stays morose and, in your effort not to wallow, you work hard enough to make things better that it prompts an inspirational power ballad. Now, not only are you feeling great about yourself, but as people walk by and hear your music, they’re left thinking, Now, there’s an inspirational fella. You go buddy!

Here’s where I trip up though. Considering the vast number of people in the world, how would we handle that many soundtracks? Sure, there would be times when your soundtrack would coincide with the people around you. I would assume, for instance, that Roomie and her soccer team would hear a fairly constant stream of Queen songs while on the field. But for the most part, people’s lives are going to be going in all different directions, ultimately leading to a cacophony of clashing melodies, which could possibly result in a rise in the incidences of insanity. Which would be bad. This is probably the main reason why the heavens do not start playing my song when I wake up in the morning. And I can understand that.

Still….it would be kind of cool.