Life to Music

What's the Soundtrack of Your Journey?

By Mark Stackpole

Wouldn't life be better with a soundtrack?

Just like in the movies, I believe that important moments should be emphasized with a song appropriate to the situation. Imagine how many bad things we would be able to avoid if scary music started to play just before we headed outside on a dark and stormy night. (I'm going by myself to see why the power went out here at this supposedly haunted summer camp ... wait ... is that the sound of crashing violins I hear? Heck, I'd better stay inside and lock the doors and windows.)

Perhaps you need to get to the airport before the love of your life takes off on a round-the-world trip because she thinks you don't love her? Wouldn't you be able to get there just a little faster if Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes was playing? I know that I would, though that could be because I might have seen Say Anything too many times as a love-struck teenager.

Music is a crucial part of a movie because it adds to the emotional impact of the on-screen events and gives them an immediacy that merely watching cannot. Can't you feel the whip in your hand and the hat on your head whenever you hear the theme song from Raiders of the Lost Ark? If someone hums the Jaws theme while I'm in the bathtub, I get a little nervous. (OK, nervous enough to get out of the tub and hop into the shower, where I immediately imagine the Psycho music and hop back into the tub.)

I hear the Beach Boys and Bryan Adams when I think of sweaty summer days playing basketball to the point of collapse or cruising around town with a bunch of friends crammed into the backseat. Images of tuxedoes and prom dresses flood my memory when certain romantic tunes hit the airwaves. Times when we really believed that we would be Forever Young (Alphaville) and new age love guru Kenny Loggins just sang about mushy stuff. (Anybody else remember Meet Me Half Way from Stallone's arm wrestling movie, Over the Top? My junior prom theme song, thank you very much. Ah, I love the 80s indeed.)

While trips down Memory Lane can be powerful (let's not even get into the breakup songs), I have found that I now imagine different music playing in my head during moments in my real life. Not memories so much as that personal soundtrack I alluded to earlier – if my life was a movie, what song would be playing during the most pivotal scenes?

Sometimes, it is the tough-guy posturing of rap, though it's not very convincing coming from a 34-year-old white guy. But for a second, I can feel that energy surging through me, and it feels good. Other times, a Top-40 tune puts a little spring in my step and makes me feel like everything is going to be OK. Occasionally, when I'm feeling low, I will even wallow in some Country-Western sadness. My soundtrack is pretty eclectic, but so is life, and since I am the only customer, I do not have to worry about making sure that every song is a hit. (When I enter a classroom full of new students, I imagine Darth Vader's Theme

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