Travelling music

I spend a lot of time travelling. Commute to and from work. I travel for work and most of my holidays involve getting onto a plane as well. Much of this is done alone. Which is OK because it gives me some time to listen to music. I see people without headphones on and wonder how they could possibly be able to bear a 5 hour plane flight without having some good music to listen to. I doubt anyone taking the time to read this would be such a person, but if you are I would like to hear about why you don't or can't listen to music. I said before in my post about headphones , that without music I would probably have hurt myself or someone else by now.


I have found with age that my taste in travelling music has mellowed somewhat. I have left the harder edges of prog and metal and moved into what can only scarily be described as classic rock and electronica. I wonder is this a common trend or is more mellow music actually better to travel to?

I spent a lot of time in the late 90s listening to Aenima by Tool. A great album of ever there was one. A great song is Third Eye. I actually think the version on Salival , the live album is better.

I love that version because of the intro. I love the confrontation of what the narrator is saying. I want to take it and play it to everyone on the plane and make sure they understand it. Then watch as they all freak out a bit about what they are actually doing. . .

However, if you were to actually do that I imagine a number of people would get the authorities to come and take you away. Especially if you were trying to confront people on a plane!

The point however is that because the travelling experience is so often a solitary one it is also a time of contemplation. As such you if you are able to get a great contemplative song to listen to you can whittle away hours lost in thought. Which is sort of the point

For example

A 9 minute song of drawn out notes and longing lyrics. It is of course going to make you slip in to thought mode. I have been listening to that song since the early 90s , when I started long haul travelling. I listened to it last week on my return from Asia on the flight. It is just a very good song. Like much of the Cure though, it is not a particularly uplifting song. Not that music needs to be by any means. I said before here, that much of the great music that has enhanced our lives is not about celebrating the joys of life, but much more exploring the darker sides to our emotions. When you are by yourself in an unfamiliar place it is interesting to have music such as this. If nothing else it enables you to take stock and decide on changes. The issue is always when you return home that you never make the changes!

A song I think conveys travelling very well is this one

I like the breezy attitude of it all. To me it manages to get across that feeling of being happy to be moving. I guess there is also a bit of teenage fun thrown into it, which as I get older appeals as well. The Smashing Pumpkins appear to occupy a strange place in the music lexicon. They were very popular and won awards and the like. Not that means very much, but they were recognised as being a very good band. They do seem to however occupy a weird place where the music hipsters (geeks) no longer will claim to like them. The rest of the world seems to put them into the complaint rock category. So they are perhaps no longer getting the recognition they deserve. Is that fair? or have I misread the situation?



I also like listening to early 2000s trance when I am travelling. I know this is not cool to all those Classic Rock readers, however because the music has the bass with the higher notes over the top it is great to travel to. Especially because most of the compilation albums you can get are mixed and as such you get 70 odd minutes of changing but continuous music. Great to gaze out of the window to. I especially like listening to trance when I am travelling by train. (I do this a surprising amount). I think it has something to do with being able to stare out of the window and take in the scenery and so having lyric heavy music somehow detracts from the experience. Paul Oakenfold is great for this.

That is a great video.

So, as I said, I spend a lot of time travelling. So what I want from you is what you like to listen to. On the commute or longer travels please. I need to put together playlists to make this tolerable and any and all suggestions are welcome.