In case you were wondering, I can be seduced by good music.
When the music is really good, you can just leave. Once you put the music on, your work is done. The music is enough. El Farol from Santana’s Superstition, for example. Take a moment to listen. Let it play while you read….
I hear that and I’m being made love to, slowly. Deliberately. Expertly.
The music you bring sets a mood, sure. But, it also tells me who you are, where you’ve been, where you want me to go. You choose something like Santana and I’ll overlook a lot of other things. The very essence of creating music is so sensual that when it’s beautiful, no matter what they look like, how they keep themselves, musicians are transformed by the music they make.
A dozen years or so ago, I was being seduced to Barbara Streisand. When I was a knock-around girl, the wiseguys spun the crooners: Frank, Dean, Tony. That music was campy, but those guys had a style, a certain appeal. But Streisand? For seduction? C’mon, I think Streisand, I think Yentl. Funny Girl. Babs looking like Juan Epstein in her annoying version of “A Star is Born.”
I do not think sexy. I do not think free. I do NOT think of your hands on me, making my body sing.
All I remember of that night is thinking “Streisand? Are you kidding me? I’m really gonna need a drink to get through this.” This was three or five years after I’d had my last drink. I didn’t have the drink and maybe I can blame his crappy taste in music for distracting from, rather than enhancing, the experience; maybe he wasn’t a good lover ( I can’t swear we did or didn’t, but we probably wound up in bed despite Babs. “No” wasn’t a word I was particularly familiar with yet.); maybe I had no business being there and Streisand was the red flag I ignored (as I am wont to do with red flags).
I’m just saying, if, at the very least, you leave me with good musical memories I’ll have a reason to come back for more. And remember more than your bad musical taste.
The first time I heard Eminem was also the first time I heard the sound track to Heaven’s Gate. Slim Shady was foreplay, it got my attention. That’s what foreplay is supposed to do. I remember every moment of the music. And every movement of the man. It didn’t work out for us, but I think of him and smile any time I hear a country waltz.
From the Night of Endless Streisands, I got nothing.
Music isn’t part of seduction. It is seduction. You should know that.
And, I will leave you for Van Morrison, Neil Young, Carlos Santana, Leonard Cohen. You might as well know that, up front, as well.
Thanks to Anna Pulley, whose tweet inspired this post.
Enjoy
