Needing to calm down after the magnificent and slightly surprising Ashes victory at the Kennington Oval, my old stomping ground, I tuned in to Guy Garvey, off of Elbow, on BBC 6Music. I'm not that keen on his band, nor am I usually a great fan of his self-referential chat on his Sunday evening show, but his musical choices are often spot on and he goes some way, together with Stuart Maconie's Sunday afternoon Freak Zone, also on 6Music, to filling the enormous empty boots left by John Peel's departure from this earth, via Peru.
Last night was no exception, with Ella Fitzgerald's 'Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered', an AR Kane track that Mr Pink used to play to me a lot in 1988 and then a tune that I'd been humming all week - 'Is That All There Is?', sung by Peggy Lee, composed by Leiber and Stoller, but for some reason in my mind connected to Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht.
Then it was goose bump time, with 'Inheritance' from Talk Talk's 'Spirit of Eden'. It got me thinking about goose bumps. Does everyone get them from listening to certain music and what's going on in the brain when they occur ? Some people get them from watching a scary movie and lots of people get them when feeling chilly, when the reaction actually serves a purpose in making the hairs on the skin stand on end, thereby trapping a layer of insulating air. But why from music ?
There's suggestion that the brain produces them to dissipate excess mental energy, when faced by something which it/you are in awe of, preferable, I suppose, to just standing there with your mouth open.
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