My world in six songs: Part three, comfort.

 

Part three of a six-part series inspired by Daniel Levitin’s book “The World In Six Songs”, which describes his theory that music is core to being human, and how six types of songs enabled the social bonding necessary for human culture and society to evolve. These song-types are: friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge, and love. See part one here.

Yesterday’s rain has passed here in SF, leaving behind blue skies shrouded in white clouds pushed by warm winds. It’s perfect weather to write about comfort, which is the third song-type discussed in the World In Six Songs. Strangely, though comfort is a hard category for me. Nothing really leaps to mind, but here goes:

12-Bar Blues, by mankind, because the most comfortable and comforting thing for me to play on the guitar is a 12 bar blues in E. I can do this endlessly.

Three Little Birds, by Bob Marley, because, like the blues, reggae music comforts me (though I can’t play it well at all).

Für Elise, by Beethoven, because it is a melody I feel I’ve known all my life and as such it grounds me, like freshly baked bread does.

La Grange, by ZZ Top, because there’s just something about the groove of this song that makes me feel gruntled. Maybe it’s the sound, maybe it's the tempo, I dunno.

Mariachi music (but not too fast or loud), by Mexico, because I love sound of it, of the guitars, the voices, the harmonized horns and because I never no what a song is about, so there are no lyrics to ruin the mood.

Next up, songs of knowledge.