After a long day of meetings and a late flight back from Melbourne last week I was looking forward to the 20-minute drive home from the airport, unwinding to my favourite songs. So I noticed immediately that my music had been muted when I turned on the ignition.
I make use of the valet parking service that my gold Velocity frequent flyer status enables when I travel to Melbourne each week. On most occasions I check that the interior of my car is clean just prior to handing it over to the parking attendant. I am constantly amazed by how much waste paper can accumulate in the small compartments of my car and I am car proud. It sounds ridiculous that I should care how my car’s interior might characterize me to a complete stranger, but I do.
It never occurred to me to consider what my choice of music would say about me. Muting my music was surely the ultimate judgement of my taste in music. The attendant only needed to drive my car a few metres from where I had left it. Couldn’t he have put up with whatever was playing on the radio for a couple of minutes?
Most of the time my car is like my own cone of silence: the one place where I can listen to whatever I like and sing along if I want to. If no one’s listening then I can’t be considered tone deaf. It’s my space and it’s generally judgement-free.
When I amplified the radio upon discovering it had been left mute (perhaps as a protest statement) the song above was playing.
It’s one of my favourites. It is literally one of my favourites in my YouTube playlist. But it’s also one of the songs that makes my sons groan and the parking attendant was closer in age to them than to me. So perhaps his muting had a point to it.
When I dropped my car at the valet on Tuesday this week, I made note of the song that was playing as I stepped out of my car. It was a different parking attendant but I was suddenly very conscious of the song on the radio as I stopped the car, the keys still in the ignition, the music still blaring.
My favourite radio station that devotes its music choices entirely to the seventies and eighties was playing another of the classics that morning:
I threw my shoulders back and stepped out of the car proudly. I have learned to embrace and own my love of seventies and eighties tunes. It’s the music that makes me happy.
What does your car radio or DVD player say about you?