Behind the Bedroom Door

Music and relationships

I don't consider myself overly maleable when I'm in a relationship (I've been called, on occasion, "contrarian" by the men who date me) but one thing that tends to morph extremely easily for me is music: Maybe that's because in my experience, men seem more focused on having music playing all the time, whether they're sleeping or talking or hanging. I'm not always in the mood for it. Which means that if I'm going to be constantly exposed to someone's music, I'd rather adopt it whole heartedly. That's why I associate certain musical phases of my life with certain men: There was the Bella Fleck and the Flecktones phase (though I admit, I didn't get into them very deeply), the Shawn Colvin phase, the Jonathan Schwartz (of NPR) phase, the Baba Maal phase and now....I guess we'll soon see. Tonight, though, I downloaded four or five Miriam Makeba songs--she died this week so I heard her on the radio several times and thought: Why aren't I listening to THIS?

Here's another question about men, women and music: Do you think there is such a thing as "chick music" and "guy music" just like chick flicks and guy flicks? I always thought there was until, recently, I met a man who likes many, many, many of the same artists that I do: you know, the female ones who sing ballads about love, many from the 80s. Is it possible to be a metrosexual male in terms of music? What do you all think?

Ciao--

Paola

Bedroom Music

Whenever I go on dating sites, which I've done intermittently over the last decade, I'm struck by the way sex and music are linked--nerve.com's dating site asks users to list their favorite bedroom music. I don't have a long list--when I think about it, all I can come up with is Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing," which is such a cliche I'm almost embarrassed to write it here. And two more. A measly list, but who needs music?

Here's my bedroom playlist, below.

1. Sexual healing, Marvin Gaye

2. Anything by Bob Marley

3. Red Red Wine by UB40

Except when I looked at this list more closely, I realized that I came to love these songs in 1983, during my sophomore year of college, when I spent a semester in London. It's safe to say those were among the happiest months of my life: I met and got infatuated with a British student who went to my college and happened to live next door to our Lancaster Gate rowhouse. He was infatuated right back, and adopted me into his crowd of friends. I was in Europe, I had a boyfriend (even better, one with a British accent,) I was in the process of discovering the great museums and art, I visited Rome for the first time, and my urban soul was awakened on the streets and in the mohawked crowds of 1980s, on-the-dole London. One thing I love about traveling, that I discovered back then, is that being in a new place makes everything more vivid, including the things you love back home. The only thing I missed about my college town was the food--back then, London didn't yet have the food thing going on. Pretty idyllic--no wonder I associate the songs I heard in the background during those six months with joy, freedom, excitement and love.

What are your top 5 bedroom songs?