Zen playlist

Being fifty has its privileges, I guess??? …

Let’s take for instance the evolution of the playlist. Most readers may not be aware or know where the first playlist originated.

Playlists were originally called mixed tapes, yes that’s right, you heard that correctly. The mixed tape was our way of putting together an anthology of music that carried us into a state of mind, a feeling of purpose and desire.

These cassettes were created to capture what we felt mattered, and the reasons were amazingly simple. We used them to express our feelings and emotions for those we held dear, gifting them as a romantic gesture.

Under other influences, we desired the idea of developing a mixed tape with songs for when we went on long road trips, like to a friend’s trailer or cottage up north. But then there was the competitive athlete in me, needing that extra push to prepare myself for those big games spreading my consciousness to focus on the task at hand and helping me play brilliantly to win more than I lost.

As technologies evolved, so had the way we plugged into our listening styles. We learned to transfer music files to and from a compact disc, until finally, a brand name used the fruit we were meant to eat to keep the doctor away, open a new platform to a multitude of genres, providing the opportunity to pluck out titles at a rate faster than the length of a song.

And now I believe the basis and purpose for all music is to stimulate a prescribed response. I use these new playlists to create a sense of feeling, setting a mood if you will.

I have created playlists that can calm my senses assisting when I write. I still have my playlist to wreak havoc, getting my blood boiling and motivating me during my workouts and my pre-game ritual.

But the one playlist I created that truly puts me in a Zen-like state would be the one I listen to with my daughter. She at ten years of age has absolutely without a doubt better taste in music than I have had through my fifty years and that’s saying a lot.

I will go through some of its developmental stages with you. She was born July twentieth two thousand and ten at ten twenty-something in the morning. When she was having trouble getting to sleep, I’d sing to her in hopes to lull her into a sense of calm.

The four songs I often found that worked were from artists like Elton John, Tiny Dancer, and Your Song, to Billy Joel’s Vienna, and Train with Hey, Soul Sister.

As she got older by months, I’d continue the trend by singing musical numbers whenever we’d go for walks, like Somewhere over the Rainbow, If I Only Had a Brain, a Heart or the Nerve were songs she was thrilled to know by Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tinman, and the Cowardly Lion, not to mention The Von Trapp family from The Sound of Music with melodies like My favorite things and Do-Re-Mi.

It was a foundation she built upon and when she was four years old, she was introduced to a small Disney movie by the name of Aladdin, the action sequences had her roaring and cheering, but it was the music that set her soaring with the magic carpet. It wouldn’t stop there, this tiny pebble of a snowball had just begun to spiral, and swiftly in its travels downward.

If there was anything we watched that had an accompanying soundtrack attached, she was asking Daddy to download it onto her playlist. And thanks to Disney, Marvel, and DreamWorks just to name a few, she has developed a taste for the music I have been listening to for years.

There’s is no genre she missing from her playlist. Here are ten vastly different artists … just a taste from her collection,

• Sweet Home Alabama – Lynyrd Skynyrd from none other than Despicable Me

• Good Vibrations – The Beach Boys from Hotel Transylvania III

• Pennies from Heaven – Luis Prima a double shot played in both the movies Elf and Igor

• What I’ve Done – Linkin Park out of the movie The Transformers

• Into the Unknown – Panic at the Disco from Frozen II of course

• Test Drive – John Powell and Gavin Greenaway for the movie How to Train Your Dragon

• Just a Girl – No Doubt played in a scene for Captain Marvel

• Three Little Birds – Bob Marley not from any movie she’s watched but she likes the tune

• My Little Girl – Tim McGraw which was used in the credits to the movie Flicka

• Sunflower – Post Malone and Swae Lee a song in Spiderman into the Spider-verse

The additions continue with series theme songs like Monster High, Warriors from She-Ra, Harmony from Skylanders, The Age of the Wonderbeasts for a show called Kipo and The Age of the Wonderbeasts, and also the song from Kim Possible … thanks Netflix.

She’s even broken the language barrier with a tune from Spiderman far from Home soundtrack with a tune from a famous Italian artist in Umberto Tozzi with the song Stella Stai.

And on occasion she catches the melody coming off the television used for a theatrical trailer to an upcoming feature…I tell you she has such a love of music that I can barely comprehend.

But you know what’s the best part of her magic, it's that we get to enjoy listening to them or occasionally belt them out on car rides to and from her mom's house in Newmarket. The short little trips to my Aunt and Uncles in Mississauga or places of interest like the road trips to Havelock, Oshawa, Stoney Creek, Hamilton, Cambridge, and Niagara for new and amazing adventures.

What’s most beautiful about her playlist is that each song is a memory we shared and that to me is Zen.

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