Panacea Songs
My musical horizon, never particularly broad, expanded a bit during my last semester of college. I met new friends who had different musical tastes, and I began to listen to an “alternative” radio station, WHFS. I’d previously leaned more toward classic rock. One of the first CDs I bought was the Indigo Girls. I liked the whole album, but “Closer to Fine” was a particular favorite. A friend of mine joked that it was my panacea song, one I played whenever I felt anxious or blue. When that song’s appeal faded, I moved on to a succession of others, such as Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill. (Hey, I never professed to be cool. I leave that to my friends like Rock Hack and her husband.)
Over the past year or so, my panacea CD has been Nick Drake’s Pink Moon. It was the CD we played in the car as my husband and I drove to the hospital for baby Guppy’s birth, and it’s been the CD in most frequent rotation in our car ever since.
Even three-year-old Drake likes it, and asks for it by name. Some of its power to calm is lost, though, when Drake shouts “Pink Moon” repeatedly until we put it in. Also, Drake is more enamored of the numeric display than he is with the songs, so he keeps insisting that we replay song one over and over. For now, that’s OK. But it’s a good thing we don’t use the car often, and then only for short trips. I sense that our Pink Moon phase will be over soon.