A funny thing, the senses.  I have an aversion to the smell of gasoline, the taste of lamb and the feel of steel wool but I love songs in minor keys.  Some examples are: Things We Said Today (the Beatles), All Along the WatchTower (Dylan), and As Tears Go By  (Stones). Neuroscientists claim that songs written in minor key evoke melancholy and its twin sisters, depression and gloom. I’ve never found that to be the case.

Take, for example As Tears Go By.  The singer is pensive, mournful of the fact that money cannot buy him happiness and yet observant of the world.  Somewhere, despite our losses and pain, children will be playing.

In Things We Said Today, the lovers are parted but hopeful of their future together. The minor key lends a bit of uncertainty and

A love that went on and on only in a song.

indeed, since Paul McCartney wrote the song to Jane Asher, the relationship seemed doomed to have its brightest moments in songs.  Hey, if my finest moments are in words, I’m a happy camper.

In All Along the Watch Tower the only people who seem to know what’s going on are a joker and a thief.  Kind of reflects my vision of the world.  Bring on the jokers and the thieves.

I haven’t spent a lot of time figuring out why I am attracted to songs that  depress other people but I did stumble upon this website a few months ago which gave me a clue. Enter the date of your birth and it will tell you the most popular song the year you were born.

Apparently I was conceived to sound of a zither.  Well, that explains a lot!

How about you?  Does the song your parents were listening to when you were conceived help to explain some odd character trait you’d care to fess up to?