Musical moments of synchronicity

So the other night, right, I agreed to go and pick up my wife from town. This is something you do when you are married and one of you has been drinking and the other one hasn't - and preferably the one that hasn't been drinking has the car. So that's fine. I offer to go and pick Katy up.

And I reach for a CD to take on the journey. Not every car trip needs soundtracking by the way, but I do see any chance to get near a CD player as a chance to play something I need to review or something I've decided to revisit. It could create a decent blog topic (fingers crossed in this case).

As a follower of Bob Lefsetz's email/letter I'd been reading Bob's gushing about Jackson Browne and figured I might dip back in to Browne's catalogue. I wouldn't say I'm not a fan but he's also not high on rotation. I used to love Running On Empty though, playing along to the title track, the cover of Stay and one or two others when I was first learning the drums. So I guess the album has a place, for me, because of that; nostalgia...

To the car then, I go. Armed with Running On Empty - it has been years since I've heard the album. I can't think how long. But years. I remember that it begins with about 30 seconds of crowd chatter and then bursts in to the title track. Well, by the time it does and I'm about to pull out of the park, just as Running On Empty (the song) booms out with that searing slide, the car's fuel-light proudly beams and the dashboard reading says Fuel Too Low.

Now it's not that funny, it's not that special - but I had a slight chuckle about it. And I picked up Katy and her drinking compadres and we agreed to drop them home but I made sure to mention a) my concerns over fuel and b) did anyone in the car think there was a blog topic in getting people to remember the times when, quite outside their control or at least in a moment of serendipity or synchronicity, the music provided a literal soundtrack for a moment; something was charted and tracked - an action, a statement, a sequence - by the music.

It all of course amounts to little more than an in-joke you share with yourself. A chance to have a small giggle alone and to enjoy the fact that for those brief seconds it felt almost spooky and definitely surreal.

One of the travellers agreed that, yes, this sort of thing happens often. And that everyone has a version of that - some better than others.

Hopefully for this blog-post to fly your version is better than mine. But it's current and it happened.  And it was the trigger for this.

The passenger in the car on that night told the rest of us in the vehicle that, when 18, he had, shall we say, euphemistically, been given a lolly and as the sugar-rush very much kicked in he found the soundtrack to it - hip at the time - was Jesus Jones with their "Who am I? Where am I? Why do I feel this way?"

So that counts too. That's definitely an example.

But I'm not talking about the time you slipped on Otis Redding's Try A Little Tenderness because you were about to, er, try a little tenderness. That's premeditated - that's a set up.

Or if you are trying the same thing, but aiming for a little less actual tenderness, so you're just going to play Shaft - well - it's still planned. Sure, I chose Jackson Browne to accompany me for the ride but I didn't know that at the exact point that Running On Empty kicked in the car was going to announce that it was very much in agreement with the title of the song and felt the same way.

That's what I am talking about.

Those times when you are writing a word and just as the word comes out of the pen or off the keys you hear it in the song that is playing; or the song's theme/lyrics capture the exact situation - that's what we are looking for here.

I'll tell you another one - only because it's true. I've only ever had one out and out friend break-up. People drift apart, sure. It happens. But the one friendship I had to call off - because we were both losing as a result of it - came about one particularly fraught Friday morning about a decade ago.

I had to tell a guy that I had known for, at that point, most of my life, to get out of my house and get out of my life because he was a parasite; a destructive lunatic and I was caught in his spiral. That sort of thing. I remember having to use two words that mean please leave but are not actually please or leave.

So, when he did storm off, telling me that I had ruined our friendship, I tuned back in to the CD that was on, underscoring our difficult conversation. It was the soundtrack to Blue In The Face. And right at the point that our conversation had reached its euphemism-for-please- leave point the CD was playing Why Can't We Be Friends? (You can click on that link, don't panic - it's the version by Geggy Tah from the CD. I wouldn't put you through the Smash Mouth version. But you can click here for the War version).

I still think about that when I hear any version of that song now. It doesn't fill me with any kind of dread; I just laugh and shrug it off.

But what about you? I'm guessing you haven't heard Running On Empty kick in just as your car was puttering out and that you haven't busted up a friendship to Why Can't We Be Friends? Maybe you have. If so - share your stories of it.

And if not, share your version of when that happened; your story of when the music matched the moment and you became aware of it and had to stop and have a wee chuckle if only to yourself, at the synchronicity or serendipity and/or schadenfraude.

Share your story of when a literal soundtrack was created to a moment in your life and the planning, from your end, was minimal or non-existent.

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Bob   #1   10:43 am Jul 30 2010

Spookiest moment for me was probably while reading a book about a photojournalist in Vietnam ('Page After Page') at the same time as listening to an album by Jeff Beck ('Frankie's House') and suddenly realising that I was listening to the soundtrack to the mini-series of the book. I had no idea there was even a mini-series to the book! That was a definite Keanau Reeves "Whoa" moment...

Don 1   #2   10:46 am Jul 30 2010

Was once playing a gig in Feilding, on a stage that was in front of a window. During the instrumental break on "I Fought The Law" I chanced to look out the window and saw two coppers sitting in a car outside, grinning and bopping away. Oddly enough that same song was playing on my car stereo at the very moment that I lost a balloon-blowing contest with another policeman on a roadside near Feilding too.

Tag   #3   10:47 am Jul 30 2010

I think it's awesome how you can string an idea worth 50-100 words into an 1100-word opus. You should ask to be paid by word. You should ask to be paid.

Kirsty   #4   10:50 am Jul 30 2010

I was trying to end one of those "friends with benefits" relationships. Tough to do - you want to stay friends but you've already crossed "that" line... anyway "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad" by Meat Loaf came on at a critical juncture in the conversation. We both stopped to listen. It underscored the situation perfectly. And no more needed to be said.

Thanks Mr. Loaf :)

I Hate Mornings (But Love Coffee)   #5   11:07 am Jul 30 2010

I can't recall any moments of spontaneous synchronicity - but I can 'pre-empt' a transition point by playing Shapeshifter's 'Bring Change'. I prefer the live version, although the Soulstice version is almost as good (and the cover version by a group of Brazilians living hard in the favela is pretty damn good too...) It's a tune that picks me up and puts me back on track - I don't know if it's chosen subconsciously, or sometimes it's a deliberate decision. But it's goooood. I like.

sperm-less   #6   11:19 am Jul 30 2010

During my vasectomy, "Eternal Flame" came on the doc's radio. "Is this burning, an eternal flame?" True story.

Simon DC   #7   11:23 am Jul 30 2010

I remember surfing the news sites reading up about the David Bain trial and listening to a bit of Workingman's Dead when Dire Wolf started playing..."Don't murder meeeee, I beg of you don't murder me. Pleeeeease don't murder me." I nearly wet myself laughing.

Noumead   #8   11:55 am Jul 30 2010

At a funeral for a young friend , while trying to play a tape track (early `80s) of his favourite song knocked the switch to radio and "3 steps to heaven" (Johny Cochrane or someone?)boomed out... much sideways movement of eyes and squirming before the correct Beastie Bopys track was played. Was just weird.

TD   #9   11:57 am Jul 30 2010

When going through a check-point had "Fck the Police" by NWA come on - didn't want to turn it down and even turned it up a bit just to be cheeky.

Vim Fuego   #10   11:58 am Jul 30 2010

Seems pretty lame but I was working away at one of my old jobs listening to the radio (Hauraki at the time) and, like a lot of us out there, I didn't really enjoy my job and was thinking about the weekend etc etc etc. 2 of my workmates were in the same mind set when what song should come on? The Animals, We Gotta Get Outta This Place.

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