July 24, 2006 - Day 6 - Week 16 - Top Ten Songs To Lift The Kreitler Spirit

With CD’s, MP3 players, I Pod’s and Satellite Radio there is no excuse for being musically challenged or handicapped anymore.  When I go to the gymnasium for my workout it is more like a musical anthology lesson because daughter Laura put 875 songs on my little white Apple music machine.  I put it on shuffle and each day I am surprised and delighted by the computers random selection for me.  Music also makes the time move geometrically.

Here it is towards the end of July and I am on Cape Cod.  I have not listened to music as often as I do at home because the sounds associated with the seashore, gulls, waves, boats and foghorns is music to my ears now.

As noted, and it is worth noting again, music makes the workout at the gym go faster and the tedium of the treadmill is mitigated.  I have had time during the past three months to note certain songs on my personally designed collection that make me smile.  When I hear Sidney Bechet’s Shake it and Brake It my legs start wobbling, but his soprano saxophone music is perhaps too esoteric, except for my fine friend Phillip Phillips from Philadelphia who loves Sydney Bechet.

Here are my top ten offerings to lift our spirits because they lift mine.

When down and out lift up your head and shout, it’s going to be a great day.  Music helps make this and every day special- either music from nature (including the seagull wail) or from my I Pod.  Here they are in no order of preference.

1. April Showers by the Dixieland Kings                                                                          
2. Chariots of Fire (theme song from the movie) by John Williams

3. Condor Pasa – by Sukay (pretty funky Andean music that really lifts my spirits)

4. Dipsy Doodle by Larry Clinton

5. Fanfare for the Common Man by Leonard Bernstein

6. Let’s Dance by Benny Goodman

7. MargaritaVille by Jimmy Buffet

8. Splish Splash by Bobby Darin

9. Surfin USA by the Beach Boys

Music soothes the soul and calms the troubled breast, or something to that effect. 

Also, every time I go to the clinic for my chemo therapy treatments 50% of the patients are plugged in. I now plug in as well, unless I am playing cribbage with a visiting expert from the National Cribbage Association.   At home I usually reserve music time to coincide with exercise as multi-tasking has become paramount in my time management plan. In other words, each of us utilizes music differently, but in the end, music manages stress well and stress can contribute to ill health.

An aside:  I once memorized The Music Man’s famous You’ve Got Trouble in River City to entertain the parishioners at St. Andrew’s in Kansas City.  I changed the words a little (Trouble in Kansas City) to reflect the place and the era (1972), but learned then that music can inspire and lift an entire community, town or church.  No wonder it can lift our spirits individually if it can lift a nation.

A double aside:  Would love to her from others as to the top 5 musical choices to lift one’s spirits.  It would be a great anthology and future CD that we could offer to others going through the challenging times of cancer.  Musical memories for the cancer patient.

Back to Week 16