Sun 22 Jul 2007
Collective Dreamwish of Upperclass Elegance
Posted by thenextstopwillbe under Music
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There’s no itch harder to scratch than a brain itch. It’s a little piece of information that hides in your memory driving your conscious mind crazy. Doesn’t matter what it is, could be a certain word that you can’t think of, the name of a character actress you recognize from another movie, the name of that band from Athens, GA, some type of cheese you had in France, or even the name of a shoe store specializing in comfortable shoes for women. The point is, you know the information is somewhere in your mind but you can’t find it and so it itches. Bad.
My brain started itching shortly after waking up this morning. It was six little guitar notes. They were subconsciously looping through my brain and I had no idea what the tune was but I knew that I knew it. It was double itchy because it would play subconsciously then I’d notice it and consciously replay it trying to figure out what the h*ll it was. In a word, torture. I had to scratch that itch but my options were limited.
First I tried the brute force method, consciously playing the guitar riff over and over in my head wishing it would shake something loose. Sometimes this works. I was hoping for just a bit more of the tune so I could place it but the riff just mocked me with its mystery. Not only did it not give anything up but occasionally it would subconsciously play just to remind me of the itch.
The only other method that has any hope of scratching a brain itch is what I like to call the “Don’t pick at it!” approach. This involves distracting your conscious mind with almost anything else while your mental peripheral vision has a crack at it. This method, if it works, results in the “Aha!” moment that we’re all familiar with thereby scratching the itch. Now your brain can go back to more important matters like, “I wonder if my Metrocard has any money on it?”
My “Aha!” moment arrived while I was on the train coming back from Sunset Park this afternoon. I suddenly knew the riff was from a song by Grandaddy. It didn’t totally scratch the itch but it gave me the clue I needed to put that bad boy to rest. Cut to me on the couch with my Macbook playing Grandaddy songs in iTunes. A few song samples later and I had it, the riff was from Collective Dreamwish of Upperclass Elegance off the Under the Western Freeway album. I could almost hear my brain purring.
By the way, my Metrocard does have money on it and that shoe store specializing in comfortable shoes for women? It’s Aerosoles, never mind how I know.
