most people, the songs they hear in high school stick with them the longest, but that a lot of times, when they hear the songs later they don’t mean what they did originally. “Everything’s new then and the music gets attached to all of it,” she told me. “Even if you heard a song right when your boyfriend was dumping you, when you hear it later, it doesn’t make you feel sad, it makes you feel that newness. That’s why oldies stations are so popular, they cheer people up.” She laughed. “They make you think you’re in high school again and that high school was actually fun.”
Mary Beth thought a song from high school was only important if it was reported for several weeks in a row, and Nicole didn’t have any of these. But Nicole was desperate, and finally, Mary Beth suggested she make a note of every bit of music that came into her mind—phrases, lines, commercial jingles, anything. Even if it seemed totally meaningless. Even if it passed through her mind so quickly she wasn’t sure it was a real song.
The very next Saturday, my sister uncovered the source of Nicole’s trouble. The key was a phrase, “hope you know it, baby,” that came into Nicole’s mind several times. Nicole could hear the melody of those five words, but that was all. When she hummed it to Mary Beth, though, my sister recognized the song immediately. It was an old R&B tune called “Didn’t I Blow Your Mind.” She got out her lyric book, and when she recited two lines from the first verse, Nicole leaned back in her chair and just stared at my sister. The lines were about someone laughing while another person cried—and this had just happened to Nicole last week. But she’d convinced herself it didn’t matter. Her boyfriend Jeff said she was being too touchy. He wasn’t laughing at her, he was just laughing. And she was always crying over nothing, wasn’t she?
The music was trying to tell her how she really felt about the way Jeff treated her. When my sister told me about it, her voice was full of wonder. “Somewhere in Nicole’s brain every word of that song was still stored. And so the phrase was like a message from her unconscious coming to help her.”
“Is she going to break up with him?”
“I don’t know. But even if she doesn’t, she knows what’s going on now.” Mary Beth tapped her fingernail on the chart. “That’s what the song did for her. It revealed her to herself.”
After her success with Nicole, my sister set about collecting evidence that even very small phrases from songs can be messages from the unconscious. But she still wasn’t satisfied. She was looking for the one customer who would pull it all together. A customer who had even less knowledge about their problem than Nicole had had. A customer whose mind used music to tell them the deepest truths about themselves that they could not have known otherwise.
And then, in early July, she found Holly Kramer.
Holly had gotten Mary Beth’s card from Rose, and she’d called my sister the very same night. She was in bad shape. She wasn’t sleeping, she wasn’t eating much, she’d lost all interest in her husband—meaning sex of course, but Mary Beth wouldn’t say that around me. Worst of all, she claimed she had no songs now and never had.
“Why call a song reader?” I asked.
“Good question,” my sister said. “I guess because she’s already tried a shrink and pills and even a psychic.”
After Holly’s first appointment that Saturday, Mary Beth told me it was going to be a really difficult case. “Having no songs is like having no dreams. It only happens when your mind is shutting down. Hiding from something.”
She was making pizza rolls for Tommy. He’d been cranky all day, and now he was in his room, throwing toys out of his toy box. She stuck the pan in the oven and I looked at her. “What could it be?”
She yelled for Tommy to come in the kitchen. “It’s hard to tell. Holly really didn’t say all that much.
Mary Beth thought a song from high school was only important if it was reported for several weeks in a row, and Nicole didn’t have any of these. But Nicole was desperate, and finally, Mary Beth suggested she make a note of every bit of music that came into her mind—phrases, lines, commercial jingles, anything. Even if it seemed totally meaningless. Even if it passed through her mind so quickly she wasn’t sure it was a real song.
The very next Saturday, my sister uncovered the source of Nicole’s trouble. The key was a phrase, “hope you know it, baby,” that came into Nicole’s mind several times. Nicole could hear the melody of those five words, but that was all. When she hummed it to Mary Beth, though, my sister recognized the song immediately. It was an old R&B tune called “Didn’t I Blow Your Mind.” She got out her lyric book, and when she recited two lines from the first verse, Nicole leaned back in her chair and just stared at my sister. The lines were about someone laughing while another person cried—and this had just happened to Nicole last week. But she’d convinced herself it didn’t matter. Her boyfriend Jeff said she was being too touchy. He wasn’t laughing at her, he was just laughing. And she was always crying over nothing, wasn’t she?
The music was trying to tell her how she really felt about the way Jeff treated her. When my sister told me about it, her voice was full of wonder. “Somewhere in Nicole’s brain every word of that song was still stored. And so the phrase was like a message from her unconscious coming to help her.”
“Is she going to break up with him?”
“I don’t know. But even if she doesn’t, she knows what’s going on now.” Mary Beth tapped her fingernail on the chart. “That’s what the song did for her. It revealed her to herself.”
After her success with Nicole, my sister set about collecting evidence that even very small phrases from songs can be messages from the unconscious. But she still wasn’t satisfied. She was looking for the one customer who would pull it all together. A customer who had even less knowledge about their problem than Nicole had had. A customer whose mind used music to tell them the deepest truths about themselves that they could not have known otherwise.
And then, in early July, she found Holly Kramer.
Holly had gotten Mary Beth’s card from Rose, and she’d called my sister the very same night. She was in bad shape. She wasn’t sleeping, she wasn’t eating much, she’d lost all interest in her husband—meaning sex of course, but Mary Beth wouldn’t say that around me. Worst of all, she claimed she had no songs now and never had.
“Why call a song reader?” I asked.
“Good question,” my sister said. “I guess because she’s already tried a shrink and pills and even a psychic.”
After Holly’s first appointment that Saturday, Mary Beth told me it was going to be a really difficult case. “Having no songs is like having no dreams. It only happens when your mind is shutting down. Hiding from something.”
She was making pizza rolls for Tommy. He’d been cranky all day, and now he was in his room, throwing toys out of his toy box. She stuck the pan in the oven and I looked at her. “What could it be?”
She yelled for Tommy to come in the kitchen. “It’s hard to tell. Holly really didn’t say all that much.
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