Music has always been a passion second only to writing for me. As a kid growing up in the 1970s, I listened to the AM radio, and later on, rock-n-roll. In college, I was a disc jockey at WSIA, 88.9 FM. My favorite bands were Sonic Youth, the Replacements, and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
As the schizophrenia slowly took over my brain, I listened to weirder music. On my radio show I dipped into the gloom: bands like Of a Mesh, Honeymoon Killers and Sleep Chamber. After I graduated with a BA in English, I had my breakdown. This was the day the music stopped. I couldn't go back to the way things were before.
At the second day program I attended, we had music therapy sessions, and my favorite instrument was the tambourine; it jangled and drowned out the symptoms.
When I was in my 20s, I loved to drive down the highway in my Mustang, listening to the FM radio. The Tom Cochrane song said it all, "Life is a highway/I want to ride it all night long." Google "tom cochrane lyrics life is a highway" and you'll see how beautiful the words are.
In the 1990s, I'd go to rock concerts with a friend. It was a time when nothing much was going on. I revolved in and out of insurance broker jobs, taking temp work in offices to hold me over while I was unemployed. Music was the soundtrack that kept me sane.
When I first moved to my 3rd floor walk-up, I'd stay up late on Saturday nights, listening to modern rock at 106.3 FM. That was the time when I was on only 5 mgs. of Stelazine, nothing more, and I'd break night. I don't recommend you do this.
Today I have an iPod that I listen to traveling on the trains and buses to drown out my worry. I downloaded iTunes to my computer. I recommend that if you have a computer, you install iTunes-hundreds of free radio stations that broadcast anything from classical to reggae, hip-hop to top 40. I like Zeilsteen radio-Nederland Dutch Holland music, and KMHD-jazz, blues and American roots.
I remember in the 1980s a woman took Judas Priest to court because she claimed their music influenced her son to commit suicide. I know that the sicker I was, the stranger the music. Now my life and lyrics are a pop tune.
When I go to the poetry reading once a month, I dip into Bleecker Street records and am compelled to buy one CD, just one. Next week, I'm going to get the new Siouxsie CD, MantaRay. She has a song on it called, "If It Doesn't Kill You." The lyrics: "If it doesn't kill you, it will shape you. If it doesn't break you, it will make you." My thoughts on the schizophrenia exactly.
"Oh, What a Song Can Do" boasts the title of a book. The liner notes accompanying my life would give testament to the truth: as my first therapist, Angelo, noted, the reason I didn't get sick any sooner was because I was a disc jockey: doing something I loved that gave me joy. I sublimated through music my feelings of alienation and not fitting into the mainstream.
