The Beatles as Prozac

These days music is more of a mood setter for me, or more precisely a mood express-er… or something like that.  I tend to listen to certain things when I’m in certain moods.  For example, if I’m feeling happy and in a good mood something like Gigolo Aunts, or Letters to Cleo works for me.  If I’m feeling rejected by the current should-be-Ms-Right I tend to go either with Derek & the Dominoes (for a sympathetic ear) or Mary Lou Lord because that voice never fails to chase my blues away.  When I’m pissed off Chelsea on Fire is a good band to “grrrrrrr” along with.  Also King’s X is a band I go for when I’m mad as hell… which is strange because they tend to be somewhat happier than their sound would imply… who cares, if it works.  There are also many bands that I can listen to regardless of my mood.  Rush and Pink Floyd are too good examples.  These days I find myself going back and forth between Emily Grogan, and The Glass Set, and Cordelia’s Dad for no reason other than they’ve all made records that I think are fantastic.

Lately though, when I feel myself getting depressed for whatever reason it’s all about The Beatles.  When my last (full) band broke up in February of ’05 I was more than ready for the end to come, but once it was over I was really down and found myself listening to nothing but Beatles for a stretch of about two months.  More recently I’ve been torn up over yet another woman that I have 0% chance of ever being with and Layla and Mary Lou just haven’t been enough to help me out… so it’s the Beatles again.

Why The Beatles?  I can’t answer that.  Sure they wrote their fair share of downers (“I’m a Loser” for instance) but they hardly feel like a sympathetic ear to me.  And yet I have a 2-gig iPod that is full with nothing but Beatles, and a stack of Beatles CDs in the car, and iTunes play-lists on my PCs at home and at work that have the entire Beatles catalog.

It just doesn’t seem right…

and yet…

It somehow seems perfect.

Go figure.