I remember reading, several years ago, a blog post by Jenny Lawson, in which she describes singing “really enthusiastically” in her car and having another driver mistake her shout-singing face for just a plain-ole shouty face. When he rolled down his window and was all, “What’s your PROBLEM, lady?” she was like, “Nothing? I’m singing?”
And when Rude Dude figured out that she was just having a head-bangin’ time in her car to the tune of Call Me Maybe, he chilled out his road-rage-y-ness, said “Turn it up!” and SANG ALONG WITH HER.
And y’know…
Aside from the initial ‘anger’ bit…
That’s just all kinds of fun/ny and is the kind of thing that should happen more often.
I can’t say it’s ever happened to me.
(Though there was that one time when my boyfriend and I were stuck on some kind of divided freeway in North Carolina in a standstill traffic jam on a hot summer day and when we rolled our windows down we could hear that the vehicles on either side of us had their radios tuned to the same station as we did so we all cranked the dial LOUD and laid our seats back and chilled to Coolio.)
What *does* happen to me is more along the lines of…
- flip channel
- commercial
- flip channel
- flip channel
- end of some awesome ’80s song
- talk talk talk blah blah from uninteresting DJ
- commercial
- flip channel
- momentary silence
- Oh… YES…
And that ‘YES’ – depending on my mood (or the season or the time of day or my patience level) – might be Vivaldi or Depeche Mode or Mary Chapin Carpenter or Tommy James and the Shondells or Bon Jovi or Nat King Cole or Train.
No words are required for me to get my in-vehicle groove on (lyrics are secondary — I can shout-hum to Yello’s The Race or the fiddle promontory from the Last of the Mohicans just as well as I can rough-voice to Bob Dylan or smooth-velvet to Alannah Myles); the only must-have to get me to add my vocals to the stereo speakers’ output is that the music suits my mood.
There are a few I’ll listen to no matter what though.
Songs I will ALWAYS stop the dial and turn it up for…
.
.
.
.
.
Mnh-mm.
How about: I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours. 😉
Today it was Rammstein’s Ich Will, not so much for the lyrics, although I DO like how they point out the bias and manipulation used in media, but for the beat and energy in the music. 😁
I’m assuming you were blasting Rammstein somewhere other than your car; last I knew, you were not a commute-music person.
I had no particular “turn it up” inspiration on my drive today, but I definitely have an affinity for Joan Jett. IF her scratchy vocals had been played today, I’d have turned it up to 20. 🙂
I have eclectic tastes.. classically, Carmina Burana ALWAYS does it for – love to crank it super high and pretend I can sing! I also love some old favourites (from my misspent youth)- 60s fare – Brandy! Knew all the lyrics (Looking Glass), LOVE ME MY STONES (growing up it was the Beatles or the Stones – I was always a Stones fan -something about that small strutting Jagger just did it for me), at Xmas it is the Messiah (if the windows don’t shake it’s not loud enough – boyfriend test – my four sheets to the wind Da late Xmas Eve and the current BFs had to sit through it without wincing – D. passed) – Mamas and the Pappas, and yes, EVEN some disco- Ring my Bell (Antia Ward)
I remember in 80s when all the figure skaters were doing their routines to Carmina Burana — memories of “skating” on hardwood floors… Ah, such fun!
I once attended a performance of The Messiah; it was an experience! 😉 (And I quite see how it could be a Boyfriend Test. Lol.)
I’m totally with you on The Mamas and the Papas. I’m fond of their music. California Dreamin’ is fabulous and I have always liked their song about how they all got together — especially the line, “no one’s gettin’ fat except Mama Cass.” 😛
I love singing to the radio, but like you say, the music has to fit my mood. The same music that can make me sing along the one day, may irritate me the next. And sometimes all I want to do is just listen to the news.
~ Marie
Oh, I get that — the love it / hate it thing depending on my mood.
The news, though… Nope. No thanks. *laugh*