Yesterday’s post brought back a lot of memories, and so I thought I’d indulge in a little reminiscing.

No, I didn’t sit down and watch a season or two of Babylon 5. We don’t have the first season on DVD yet (does anyone know if they’ve fixed the problems with the Region 4 version?), and I’m not sure I could ever go back to watching it on video.

Instead I fired up my computer and played some of my beloved Amiga games.

Now my PC is less than a year old, and while it may not be able to handle Crysis (but hey, can any computer?), it can run most games—including Fallout 3. So why am I going back to playing games that came out 20-odd years ago?

Have you ever heard a piece of music and been taken back to when you first listened to it? Whenever I hear the “Icehouse” album I’m immediately taken back to the lounge room of my parents’ house. I’m sitting on the couch, listening to the album crackling away on our record player while drinking a glass of milk with a dash of vanilla essence.

These games do pretty much the same thing, except they take me back to the rooms I stayed in while I was at university. A bunch of us are crammed in there, my Amiga hooked up to a friend’s guitar amplifier cranked up so high the in-game explosions literally shake the walls. There’s pizza, and garlic bread, and bottles of Coke—probably the best meal we’ve had all week. (The on-campus dining room wasn’t exactly known for its culinary expertise.) And above it all is the sound of laughter as one of us pulls off an amazing stunt or explodes in a ball of pixelated flames.

I sold my beloved machine years ago. But thanks to a bunch of dedicated people on the Internet I can still play all those classic games on my new computer. (When my wife sees me playing them she just shakes her head and walks away.) And while the graphics have dated, and the music doesn’t have quite the impact it once did (but is still pretty damn good), it still takes me back.

It’s a bit of a ghost town where I work at the moment.

No, we haven’t sacked half our staff (in fact, we’re about to get a whole bunch of new people in the office), but right now we’re the only people on the floor, and so it’s really quiet. I half expect to look up and see a tumbleweed roll past my desk.

For most of the people in my area, this is probably the perfect working environment. They can focus on their work without being interrupted by conversations in other areas. (And voice mail can take care of any unwanted phone calls.)

But for me it’s becoming a real problem. As I’ve said before I’m an extrovert, and so without people around me I start to feel incredibly drained.

The ironic thing is when it’s quiet like this I put on my headphones and listen to music to break the silence, which cuts me off from people even more. (I think it might be time to buy a speaker dock for my iPhone.)

As I said, we’re about to get a whole bunch of new people in the office. So many people, in fact, that the office will be filled to capacity. And so we’re about to have a “blocking and stacking” exercise to fit everyone in without splitting up the various teams. (Think of it as human Tetris, except people don’t suddenly disappear when you complete a row.)

I’m part of the “blocking and stacking” team, and so I get to… shall we say “suggest” which sections move into the area to join us. (Yes, in some situations you can choose your neighbours.)

A few years ago I would have gone for the quieter teams in the office. The ones who’ll keep to themselves, make the least noise, and cause the least disruption.

But now I’m starting to think a bit differently. Maybe I should focus on groups at the other end of the spectrum. Not necessarily the people who are noisy, but rather the people who are a bit more interactive. People who can help me re-energise, and maybe re-energise themselves in the process.

Or maybe I should just tell the rest of my team I’m open to bribes.

It’s been a pretty hectic week. Not flat-out, deadlines-at-every-turn hectic, but enough to make it feel like I haven’t had a minute to myself. (Of course, having Monday off didn’t help things much.)

So today I slowed it right down.

It started with the Friday morning coffee get-together with friends. Normally we’d have a dozen or more people crowded around the table, and several conversations going on at once. But this morning there was only five of us—which is just as well considering we could only get a small table outside.

And you know what? It was kind of nice. It felt a lot more intimate, and I didn’t have to decide which conversation to try and follow as there was just the one most of the time. I’d still like to go back to a “full house” next week, but it was a nice (and very relaxing) change.

After spending most of the morning editing articles for the office newsletter, I was ready for a break. (I’ve also learned to get out of the office after doing major editing so I don’t have to argue with anyone about what I’ve done to their copy.) So I grabbed a book, and headed to my new favourite spot—the grassy areas along the river just near the Teneriffe ferry terminal.

For an hour I sat on the grass under a tree, a slight breeze keeping me nice and cool, reading a book and listening to Brian Eno’s “Thursday Afternoon”. Actually it was quite a strong breeze, which is why I lost my bookmark within seconds of opening the book. But it was still a great way to spend my lunch hour, especially compared to how I spent it yesterday.

About the only sore point (literally) was when I stood up. Sitting cross-legged for an hour is obviously something I’ll have to get used to.

But even as I hobbled back to the office, I was smiling. And you know what? I still am.

While I was growing up, my father worked mostly in road construction. As a result he suffered from what they now call industrial deafness. He could hear the low notes okay, but the high ones simply didn’t register.

(In a cruel twist of fate my mother could hear the high notes but not the low ones, and so there was a never-ending battle for control of the ‘tone’ dial on our record player.)

One Christmas we got him “What Bird Call Is That?” on cassette. We lived in the country, and so we saw a lot of birds in our back yard, and heard many more. He loved it, but after playing it a couple of times he wanted to take it back because the cassettes had blank spots. Unfortunately they weren’t blank. He just couldn’t hear the calls because they fell outside his hearing range.

He didn’t take it back. He just put it on the shelf with the rest of his music collection. It didn’t get played much.

Many years later (I think I was at university), my parents got their first pair of hearing aids. And their lives changed completely. The volume on the television got lower. They listened to their music collection again, this time hearing every single note and instrument being played. And my father finally got to hear the bird calls he’d been missing since that Christmas Day so many years ago.

My hearing has always been pretty good (my wife may think otherwise), and so I’ll never appreciate how much those hearing aids changed their lives. But last night I came close to understanding how they felt when they played their music.

Ever since my Sennheiser PX40 headphones snapped in two I’ve been listening to music through the earbuds that came with my iPhone. At first I didn’t like them at all (never been a fan of poking things in my ear) but I soon got used to them, not to mention the built-in controls. Even when I listen to music I use them, because I don’t want to wake up my son.

But lately I’ve been missing the bass notes I know are there, and so I started shopping for a new set of headphones.

And then I remembered I had a pair of Sony MDR-NC60s sitting in the cupboard that I’d completely forgotten about. So last night I dragged them out, hooked them up to my iPhone, fired up some Dire Straits (the flavour of the month), and pressed Play.

The difference was incredible. I could hear sounds I’d completely forgotten were there. It was like music in high-definition. But then I realised these were also noise-cancelling headphones, and flicked the switch.

In a comment to one of my posts, my best friend Russell (who probably got me hooked on Dire Straits in the first place) said studio albums made you feel like you were the only person in the room. Well, I never felt it as much as I did last night. When I flicked that switch the outside world disappeared completely and it was just me, an audience of one, listening to some of the greatest music ever created for what seemed like the very first time.

What a way to spend an evening, eh?

I grew up in a very musical environment. My parents weren’t musicians or anything like that (thought my mother and sister both played the piano), but there was nearly always a record playing in the lounge room.

When I was three or four years old I’d sit on the coin-operated horse outside the local chemist, kicking my legs and singing to anyone who walked past. In primary school I would lie in bed at night and literally sing myself to sleep. (It helped that we lived on a quarter-acre block in the country.)

As I got older the singing stopped (when my voice broke, it broke completely), and I began listening to the radio instead, falling asleep to it playing on the clock radio beside my bed.

(I can still remember waking up in a cold sweat when they played “Two Tribes” and I heard the words, “Mine is the last voice that you will ever hear. Don’t be alarmed.”)

Now, thanks to the Internet and MP3 players, I can take my music collection (or at least part of it) with me wherever I go. My iPhone has everything from Abba to ZZ Top on it, and chances are no matter what your musical taste, I’ll have something that will make you want to hurl it across the room.

I’ve come to rely on some of those tracks to help me get through the day. Some lift my spirits, while others act as the drinking buddy to help me drown my sorrows. Sometimes it’s the title that does it for me, and sometimes it’s just a line somewhere in the lyrics. But either way, they’re a permanent part of my collection, and have almost become the soundtrack of my life.

A few songs from that collection:

• “Bring me to life” by Evanescence. Like most people, I’ve had some pretty low points in my life. And while I was down there, this is what was playing on my MP3 player, over and over again. It may have been Amy Lee singing “Save me from this nothing I’ve become”, but she was only saying what I was feeling.
• “Can’t cry these tears” by Garbage. Whenever I’m having one those days where it feels like I’m banging my head against a brick wall, this is what I play. “I just don’t care any more… I’ve reached the end of my rope…”
• “Waiting for my real life to begin” by Colin Hay. Not only is this a beautiful song, the title really resonates with how I’m feeling about my career at the moment.

I’m sure I play a lot of other songs over and over for various reasons, but these are the ones that immediately spring to mind.

So, what songs are on the soundtrack of your life?

I rarely listen to the radio when I’m driving. As soon as I get in the car I whip out my iPhone, connect it up to the stereo’s auxiliary jack, and spend the next ten minutes choosing an album. (If I’m ever late for a meeting with you, this is probably why.)

But sometimes, when I can’t be bothered untangling the audio cable (or I’m running late for a meeting), I’ll switch it on to drown out the traffic noises. (They can’t all be beeping their horns at me, can they?)

Then it’s a question of how long I can put up with the music. And these days it isn’t very long.

No, I’m not one of those people who shake their head and say, “That’s not music. Where’s the melody?” I may not like everything they play, but it’s not enough to make me switch off.

Cover versions and remixes, on the other hand, will make me switch if off quicker than you can say “non-stop hits”.

On the weekend I heard some woman (no idea who) singing Phil Collins’ “Another day in paradise”. The original version is fantastic, so why did she have to record another version? When I hear it on the radio I want Phil singing it, not some woman I’ve never heard of.

(Of course, there are exceptions. The Supremes may have originally recorded “You can’t hurry love”, but as far as I’m concerned Phil Collins owns it.)

Still, at least she didn’t add a drum machine and up the tempo to turn it into a dance track. Sometimes I wonder if anyone even listens to the song lyrics before they trash it. Come on, people. There are some stories you should never dance along to.

Now I’m sure Phil had to say yes before she recorded it, and he probably gets a few extra dollars whenever they play it. But it hardly seems fair, does it? He gets the money, while we have to put up with the song every hour.

I think we should get to have a say. Next time someone does a cover version of a song, we should get to vote on it. If most people like it, then it gets airplay. But if they’ve managed to destroy a perfectly good song, then it should die slowly and painfully (along with the singer, possibly).

And then it really would be another day in paradise.

A few days ago on Twitter a friend asked if anyone listened to music while they worked. She said she was writing with headphones on and struggling to hear her writing voice over the music.

I’m not sure how her other friends responded, but I usually listen to music when I write. Working in complete silence doesn’t work for me, possibly because there’s always something I can hear—the fridge humming, the house creaking, my own breathing, etc. So I put on some music to create my own background noise.

But to do that, it can’t be just a random selection from my iTunes library. No, the album needs to have a few… shall we say “qualities”.

First, it can’t have any lyrics. You have no idea how many times words from songs have made their way into my writing, usually with comical results. This is one reason I envy artists, who can probably work with any kind of music playing. (The other reason being that they can draw.)

Second,  I need to know it backwards so it drifts into the background without me getting distracted my something new I’ve noticed.

Finally, it needs to be relatively “soft”, which in my case means it features a lot of synthesizers and would probably be found in the New Age or Ambient section.

Over the years I’ve built up quite a collection, and so I’ll often be listening to Vangalis, Brian Eno, Enya (her lyrics are more like another layer of music) and even people like Craig Padilla. But if I need to get into the writing mindset quickly, then there’s only one choice: Jean Michel Jarre’s “Oxygene”.

I’m not sure why, but this particular album is the one I turn to again and again (and yes, I’m listening to it now). Maybe I’ve done so much writing with it playing it’s now part of my writing kit. (Hey, at least I can take it pretty much everywhere I go.)

So, what music do you listen to when you’re writing?