The Soundtrack to My Life

One of the assignments I have from my therapist is to create a list of songs that say something about me as a person. The other assignment is to reread The Catcher in the Rye. The point of each of these assignments is to work with something I enjoy as a way of rebuilding my self image. Reading and listening to music are two of the most enjoyable things for me, at least they were until my attention span was completely shot to hell. I'm going to blame student teaching kindergarten for that. I hear from veteran teachers that eventually your attention span matches that of the children you teach.

The difficulty of both of these tasks is that I can't focus on one thing. In the time I wrote the first paragraph, I paced around my room, checked my email, spun around in my desk chair, and scrolled through my Tumblr dashboard. It's a sad state of affairs.

The hard part about creating my the soundtrack of my life is that I'm not sure what to say about myself. When you spend most of your life outwardly playing at having no personality while inwardly fantasizing about being a dominatrix lesbian stripper, what do you have to say about yourself? The song that embodies that is probably Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker." What if you're sitting at a party, not saying anything to anybody, and fantasizing about whooping a bad guy's ass on the top of a burning building? Well then, it's "Tales of a Scorched Earth" by Smashing Pumpkins. Those are two songs I like, that I see myself as some sort of character doing something that interests me, but they don't really say anything about me. Just that I have an imagination, and it goes to some interesting places.

In the story of my life, there's no character development and the ships all sail, hit ice bergs, and sink. Thankfully not while Celine Dion plays in the background.

But after some stalling and thought, I think I've come up with a good start.

My emotional state(s):
"The Cosmic Game" by Thievery Corporation (generally peaceful)
"Bron-Yr-Aur" by Led Zeppelin (whimsical)
"Good Feeling" by the Violent Femmes (sad/wistful/wishing good things didn't have to end)
"Climbing up the Walls" by Radiohead (restless and strange)
"Smashing" by Giant Drag (horribly depressed)
"A Warm Place" by Nine Inch Nails (sort of empty after crying)
"Sorrow" by the National (depressed again)
"Cross Bones Style" by Cat Power (helpless)
"Drown" by Smashing Pumpkins

How I relate to others:
"Talk Show Host" by Radiohead (self-perpetuated alienation)
"Better off Alone" by the Black Angels


How I feel about society:
"The Masses Are Asses" by L7
"Real Estate" by Flight (The song has "let's destroy the world" in the chorus, okay?)
"All of You" by Magdyn Osh (People are assholes, but it's still a miracle that they exist.)

How I deal in romantic relationships:
"Billie Holiday" by Warpaint (the idea that I'd do anything for this person...)
"Beekeeper's Blues" by Susanna Hoffs (...who sucks.)
"She's Gone" by the Brian Jonestown Massacre (But that's okay, because I'll wait around anyway.)
"When You're Old and Lonely" by the Magnetic Fields (Oh, you'll regret treating me like crap, sir.)
"Fuck This...I'm Leaving" by the American Analog Set (Later, bro!)

What I want from life:
"Someone Else's Life" by Joshua Radin
"A Place Called Home" by PJ Harvey
"Make Yourself" by Incubus
"For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her" by Simon & Garfunkel