"Hurts So Bad" - Little Anthony and the Imperials, 1965

Without music, I don't know how I could exist. Music is a big part of my soul. But sometimes, music can cause pain. I mean physical pain.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.

There's new song out by Kylie Minogue (yuck...!), and it's playing on the radio in the UK with frightening frequency. It's called "Wow". The synthesized sound during the "wow wow wow wow" part of the song actually makes my brain hurt! It's incredibly distressing. I have to turn the sound right down any time it plays or I actually feel pain.

That doesn't happen to me very often, luckily.

But I remember my father having an interesting reaction to the theme to the film "Chariots of Fire" back in the 80s. He said that the sound of the popular Vangelis record made him feel disoriented -- queasy -- uneasy. It didn't have a negative effect on me at all, but at least I can understand that kind of reaction to music.

Another example -- John describes the sound of Donald Fagen's voice as being an irritant to him like the sound of a fingernail scraping on a blackboard. That made my skin crawl, just typing the words fingernail and blackboard in the same sentence. (As an aside, one of the great mysteries of my life is how I could fall so madly in love with a man who really can't stand one of my all-time favorite bands -- Steely Dan! But that'll be the topic for another blog entry one of these days.)

And according to my parents, when I was little, I would burst into tears any time the song "Ebb Tide" played on the radio or TV. I must admit that I still find that song disturbing.

Do any of you have any examples of musical pain to give back to me?

Janet