Music should not put you to sleep. Kind of defeats the purpose in a way if it does. Today’s song is something that might relax but in many ways bores the listener, forcing them into slumber. That’s not something that just pops into the mind.
Yet I found myself thinking of this task as I stripped off my shirt and placed my body on the table. I looked over at the stack of CDs thinking of how much I miss buying them from stores, and wondered which she would choose before sticking close to 100 needles throughout my body. I found myself taking a lot of deep breaths, really wanting to scratch my head, thankful that I turned off my cell phone, and wondering if I could answer this question.
What song puts me to sleep?
It’s a question that after the hour I could not answer. Honestly I have thought about this many nights. I would self-diagnose myself as someone with insomnia, based loosely on irregular hours. Having all of the daily stress build towards the end of the work day doesn’t help, and as I tell my wife nightly there is no just “walking into the house and going straight to bed” in my world.
I’m sure technology doesn’t help, and neither does old habits. I can remember being 4 years old staying up late night with the remote in hand. After my mom went to sleep I would find a KISS movie or wrestling back when it was WWF and not WWE on the television. Years later I would be in Florida staying awake at night out of fear. This state has some weird and resourceful bugs, and after one crawls on you overnight you seem to want to stay up and exterminate all night.
As we get older the classic lullaby is sung to others instead of listen to by us. As our appreciation for music grows we close our eyes so we can dream of being inside the song, but quickly return to reality once the music stops. It should almost be a question as to what music relaxes us instead.
Honestly though with all that said the technology has now began to help my insomnia. I found a little app recently called “white noise lite” that mimics a couple of CDs we were given some time back as gifts. It contains several noises, including rain, fan, and wind chimes. I use beach with the ocean waves, finding that the rhythm of the crashing waves seems to match the correct breathing I need to sleep. Not sure what type of person would pick airplane as their noise but I guess to each person their own.
Still to pick actual songs and not just what I use (along with lots of melatonin) to relax and eventually sleep, I would maybe start with “Weekapaug Groove” by Phish off the Slip Stich and Pass live disk. Odd choice because I basically listened to this disk for two reasons back in college and neither are what most fans might put it in for. The first was as one of what I called the “rotation” stuck in the library computer as background music while studding or writing a paper. Most of the disk is great for that, but the group is known to go off on little journeys during songs and which is why having it as a “my night just ended and I need wind down music” made sense as my second reason.
For Prince Song that relaxes me, I will go with “God” the love theme from Purple Rain. It’s an instrumental track that at points goes on forever. I can calmly listen to it and feel at peace with the world around enough to close my eyes and hope the ocean waves and melatonin kicks in soon…
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