These songs affect my heartbeat

(for deep_thought)

Oy, I feel a little naked noding all this subjective stuff! The way music makes me feel is so personal. And translating feelings and thoughts into words is a little difficult for me. But I kind of said I would do this so here we go...

Here's some songs that affect my heartbeat and an attempted explanation of exactly how my heart gets affected by them.

*ahem*

Some songs makes my heart race. They are exciting and stimulating. With song like these, my body knows that it's experiencing something really brilliantly good. Usually, songs that quicken my heart rate are the ones which induce the most brain activity, either through words or sounds or flawless integration of the two. The more cerebral, the faster my heart goes. Examples:

Forty-six & Two - Tool
Hyper-ballad - Björk

Sometimes, it's the rhythm that gets me... the songs that have a pulse of their own. Their pulse affect my pulse. My blood flows in rhythm with the music. They're the 'turn-up-the-bass-and-feel-the-music-reverberate-through-your-marrow type of songs:

Flower - Moby
Water - P.J. Harvey
The Way I Am - Eminem

Sometimes the song's pulse is so exquisite that it's like a waterfall. There's too much energy to be contained in a simple beat. There's still a dominant rhythm there, but it's a flowing one that tumbles on and on, daring my heart to flow with it:

Tubular Bells - Mike Oldfield
Siren - Tori Amos

Some songs cause an ache in the pit of me. They resonate in my chest; my heartbeat becomes a little painful and slow. Sometimes the pain is languid and sometimes it's furtive. Sometimes it's a sharp blade running a long slow cut through my heart. My blood feels thicker, heavier, somber as it pumps:

Strange Fruit - Nina Simone's version
Exit Music (for a film) - Radiohead
Sister Janet - Tori Amos - (with this one, my heart always wants to beat slower than the piano notes do. It creates a really.. indescribable feeling. The line, "slipping the blade in easy," is so appropriate for what this song does to me)

Some songs vibrate on some unpinpointable frequency that makes my heart & circulatory system buzz. Electric Guitar or electronic programming tend to do this to me. High pitches, raspy voices, whispering or heavy breathing all do it too. It's just a weird inner vibration, like my blood cells have been shaken up and are buzzing:

Horses - Patti Smith
Down By the Water, Naked Cousin - Polly Jean Harvey
She's Your Cocaine, Hotel - Tori Amos
Helter Skelter - The Beatles
If 6 was 9 - Jimi Hendrix


Some are just plain ass-kicking songs; songs that are too intense for me not be physically affected. My heart pounds energy out & I feel I must hit something or dance or scream or paint the walls with murals something.

Stinkfist - Tool Professional Widow - Tori Amos White Rabbit - Grace Slick/Jefferson Airplane

Some are just oddly freeing. Like ocean wind or waves crashing. I feel I am floating, my heart expands and I don't even notice any sort of heartbeat, just ocean; just deep and powerful calm:

Primitive - Annie Lennox
Beulah Land - Tori
Watermark - Enya


Some songs cause veritable palpitations. I think these are my favorite kind. They're the songs containing moments where your heart catches on a word, or a note. And it lasts for only a moment, but it's infinitely gratifying:

Dilate - Ani DiFranco - The sudden loud strum of guitar throbs my heart. It would be twangy and annoying if the note wasn't so deep. It hits me in just the right way.
A Case of You - Joni Mitchell - as she sings "I remember that time you told me, you said, 'Love is touching souls.' Well surely you touched mine 'cause part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time. " it feels as though the beating of my heart is suspended in the sound of her voice.
Four Degrees - Tool - When Maynard says "give in now, give in now. Let me.... in" the sudden quiet and the way he says, "in" fucking send me every time. It's orgasmic. My heart jumps. I tremble. I shit you not.>
Losing My Religion cover by Tori Amos - (I know a lot of people hate this cover, forgive me) When she gets to "life is bigger" and her voice rises, my heart skips a beat or two.

All of those songs affect my heart in more than one way though. That list is certainly not a pigeonhole of what each song does to me. For example, 46 & 2 not only stimulates my brain, causing my heart to beat faster, it also has a hard rhythm that I can get completely caught up in, moments of anticipation that make my heart skip a beat, a sort of transcendent quality that gives me a bit of a buzz at times and then there's the fact that it's damn powerful and (basically) just kicks ass. But I can also lie down, put on 46 & 2, close my eyes and relax into that medatative oceanic state.

Some more songs that affect my heartbeat in a significant and noticeable way:

The Wretched - NIN
Boadicea - Enya
Famous Blue Raincoat - either Leonard Cohen's or Tori's version.
Beethoven's 5th - my FAVORITE part is right around six and a half minutes into it. Maybe 6:20. It absolutely kills me.
Porcelain - Moby
Pushit, Swamp Song, Disgustipated - Tool
Blue Train - Cibo Matto
Oh, God.. all of Mer De Noms - A Perfect Circle
Walking in Your Footsteps, Don't Stand So Close to Me - The Police
Riders on the Storm - The Doors
Twisty Mirror - Holly McNarland
The Million You Never Made - Ani DiFranco
Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding
Don't Fear the Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult
Song for Eric Remix by Chromakey
& for some reason, the Theme to 12 Monkeys makes me jittery.