R is for...

"River of Dreams" by Billy Joel


This song sticks out for two reasons: one, because I'm pretty sure it used to be on my sleepy time playlist back when I wore headphones to sleep every night, which was during my first and last year of college.  The middle year was by far my most relaxing, so I didn't need it so much then.  My first and last years, though, were so stress inducing that winding down for sleep was close to impossible, so I sought out soothing music to try and reach some sort of calm place.  This is a gentle-sounding song, plus it has "dream" right in the title.  What could be better.

The other reason I remember this song is because it was one of only two or three songs that played over the loudspeakers where I worked in high school that I didn't hate.  If you haven't worked in a store before, you may not realize that there are only about twenty or so songs that play overhead, and those twenty or so songs play over, and over, and over again.  Employees learn to hate these songs, since we hear them so much, and they are often the soundtrack to all the strange and unpleasant things that go on in the service industry.  Back in high school the big song was "Hey There Delilah", and I heard that song so many times at work that I seriously almost lost my mind.

But Billy Joel played, too, though not quite as often as some of the more current songs on the playlist.  When it did come on, it was like a little oasis of not-completely-annoying in a desert of oh-my-god-not-this-song-again-please-kill-me-please.  I wouldn't say this is one of my favorite songs or anything, and honestly I'm not entirely sure why I liked this song more than some of the others, but it did resurface later on when I was trying to think of calming sounds, so maybe it was for the best.

On the topic of R songs, once in a great while at that old job, "Red Red Wine" would play.  It was like a rare gem that came along about once every month or so, and I couldn't help but laugh whenever it did.  Imagine being chewed out by a customer for the lack of variety in the store's infant onesies and hearing that ridiculous voice saying "red red wine you make me feel so fine" in the background.  It's the type of thing that makes you reassess your entire life.