Soothing the Savage Breast

I had a little wine, and I put on some music. And the deep heart of my soul began to dance a little.

What is it about music that gets through your emotional defenses, when it is working the way it should, what is it about music that moves you in a purely deep and soulful way?

You can engage with music on a present, aware and critical level, but it works all the way down to your groin when you're not listening. You rock and you sway and you close your eyes.

You groove and you feel sexy. The music overtakes you. The image of topless women dancing with abandon during Woodstock is understandable the way no cultural arbiters could prevent us from accepting.

We got it. The music makes us want to fuck. We often put music on when we're in the bedroom. I had the radio on in the car when I was out on a date and we parked in the (almost) empty parking lot by the bay, looking at the lights across the water on the bridge, the occasional boat.

The cars' headlights that would swish by and disappear out of our peripheral vision a moment later. The tinny lo-fi rock'n'roll would be the soundtrack to our explorations of each other's bodies in the dark, unsure, alone and steaming up the windows.

Cold fog on the outside, Motown on the inside.

Music is a kind of release mechanism. A kind of inhibition-suppressor. It unwinds the tense coil in the deep of your gut and loosens your limbs. You want to move. To dance. To get loose. Loosen your clothes.

And taste that cock in those pants, undone and down and ready to party as well.