If you tear off into the night, with your unmufflered truck roaring in the blackness, Confederate flag stretched out tight behind you in the wind you’re making with your new velocity, and you have Lynyrd Skynyrd blasting out of your cheap speakers as you move through the Southern Darkness….you’ve picked music that suits the mood of the moment.

Skynyrd is perfect for a rebel yell fueled redneck holiday.

Now, if you are going to dance around at a Jewish wedding and throw down glasses as part of the ceremony, a more traditional song might suit the mood better.

Maybe a song like “Hava Nagila”?

In that kind of situation, it makes a lot more sense than “Give Me Three Steps”.

But what kind of celebration are you having if you listen to something like this?

“Irish Lace” Eric Andersen

What kind of a party are you having if you listen to music like that?

Pour another cup of tea in a dimly lit room, stare out at the rain coming down, give a hearty rebel yell….and listen to some more sad music.

YEAH!!! THEM’S MY PEEPS!!! THAT’S HOW I ROLL!!!

Music is medicine….and I listen to the musical equivalent of Prozac.

Maybe that’s how they should market the Windham Hill stuff? “The musical equivalent of Prozac”….Ambien?

I don’t know….I’m just typing away, and….I don’t know.

It’s funny how I can dial back a boisterous mood with my musical choices.

I can move myself back into melancholy land pretty fast if I pick some music that supports my mood.

And I always seem to be able to find some kind of heartfelt ballad about love lost or something along those lines to make it all wrong again.

Tragedy….melancholy…who wouldn’t get a kick out of that?

Here’s a song…an old song, now….by Donna Summer and Matthew Ward…that has a line in it that I really liked…

“Love Has a Mind of Its Own” Donna Summer

“….passion wasn’t pain..”

All these choices that I make….from the music I pick on down….support my moods.

There’s nothing even close to rocket science in an observation like that.

I wonder why I gravitate to the sad?