The soundtrack in the back of my head

 

The soundtrack in the back of my head

by Jen Davies, nerd

July 8, 2026

Today's blog has a soundtrack! It isn't necessary though.

https://youtu.be/cD7MuSTu7ss Ludovico Einaudi: Fox Tracks (Day 3)

I have only experienced life in two ways: long periods of time when music is essential to existing day to day, and long periods when my head is too full of ideas to accommodate much music in there. I'm currently in a strange period when I seem to be able to handle both: I'm not as quick to push the ideas out into the world, but I'm still able to do it and make space for music. In fact, with music playing I find it a little easier to sit at my desk (a constant problem: making myself sit down and DO it, so you can imagine how difficult writing my doctoral thesis was).

My relationship with music began early, because both my parents loved it and played it pretty much daily. I also grew up in the 1980s and had the benefits of children's television with incredible music, especially Fraggle Rock. Check out the music in Fraggle Rock - I credit that show for a lot of taste in rock and blues. My parents sang with me, and as a result I got over that fear that a lot of people develop about not being a good singer - I'm fine. I'll never cut a record, but I can carry a tune and I'm not anxious about an audience. I had music around me a lot as a child, and I wanted it. It moved and still moves me.

My relationship with wordless music was established as a child too. In addition to Led Zeppelin and CCR (so different from each other), I was introduced to Mozart and Bach (also different from each other). I loved it all. When we moved homes in hindsight I was anxious about it although I couldn't express it then, and I had a really hard time sleeping. (I've never been a good sleeper, that's a whole 'nother blog entry.) No idea why but I latched onto a tape (yes, it was the tape era) of composer and pianist Hagood Hardy. I'm sure you've never heard of him, and I was this many years old when I learned he was Canadian (shows how little I knew), but he was quite good. I would put the one tape I had into my brown Fisher Price cassette player and fall asleep to the music. I can still hum one of the tunes in my head, though I have no idea what it was called and I haven't heard it since I was probably 12 years old.

https://youtu.be/jmO6AiScSh8 Tangerine Dream: Love on a Real Train

In the 1980s there were incredible experiments in electronic music. Wendy Carlos' first album, Switched On Bach, is a good one, but the technology evolved quickly to well beyond faking the sound of real instruments. My favourite old school electronic group, Tangerine Dream, even made it onto big movie soundtracks (eg Risky Business, apparently) and they wrote movie soundtracks (Thief and Sorcerer are both top-notch films with top-notch soundtracks), but I listened to complete albums of silent story-telling that were unaffiliated with any visual media and made up stories in my head. Very meditative, and I recommend it.

Today, I love move soundtracks for wordlessness. Some film soundtracks are a little too good and I can't listen to them without picturing the relevant scenes, so I can only listen to them when driving (but then it's like safely watching the movie in my head, so it's all good). Interstellar is a good example - Hans Zimmer's soundtracks are my favourites, and that one was so well done that after only one viewing of the film my spouse and I knew a song was missing and which scene it was from! iTunes later posted the missing track with an apology. Current favourites are Tron:Ares (NIN's Atticus Ross has written some incredible soundtracks, check out the one from The Book of Eli, which is also an excellent movie), Drive (also a great movie), and the scifi show The Expanse (fantastic scifi about that awkward teenage phase between now and Star Trek, when space travel is still really dangerous).

https://youtu.be/I2UwSKP7vXI The Young'uns: Rap Her to Bank (Roud 1786)

Depending on what I'm doing, some music with words works nicely. My parents taught me to sing in close harmony, and those were always my favourite things to learn in school music classes (vocal and instruments - I loved the recorder, and I played clarinet when I took elective music classes). I'm grateful that I have an ear for music, and I really like the brainwaves that a nice close harmony sets up in my head. This kind of folk music works for me when I'm trying to reflect deeply on something that I'm producing, and I need to sweat the details.

https://youtu.be/h1mpculkegY The Chainsmokers and Bob Moses: Why Can't You Wait

I've always had a spot for electronic music, as noted above, and some artists have sounds that I can thoroughly enjoy in the background while I'm working on something else. Both of these (The Chainsmokers and Bob Moses) do that. Not surprisingly if I just need to get things out of my head and onto paper/digital paper, this is helpful, I assume because it's energizing. The words do cause some slow-down, so if I really need to focus I should stick to wordless music, but the words can also be inspirational so depending on what I'm working on, sometimes the trade-off between inspiration and speed is worthwhile.

There you go! There's an introduction to the soundtrack in my head. I love music for setting the mood of what I'm working on, and frankly as an incentive to focus on what I'm doing (like a reward for staying put and doing it).