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Haruki Murakami: “It’s my belief that if you listen to good music, your writing will improve.”

This comes from one our greatest writers. I am thinking especially of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. Both the Lovely Carla and I have read it. Both of us totally loved it. Magnificent & Magical.

Carla and I listen to good music all day long. We are close-listeners. We really pay attention to the music. We still spin those magical little silver discs, it truly is the “golden age” of CDs, on our big, classic, multi-component, living room stereo system and our compact bookshelf stereo system on the counter in the kitchen. We are not play-list people. We don’t listen to singles. We listen to albums, we consider an album, a cohesive collection of songs presented as one artistic statement, as the one of the great art-forms.

Pretty sure everything improves when you are listening to good music: writing, cooking, philosophizing, talking, meditating, relaxing. I mean, it’s truly better living with good music.

What’s good? 

That of course is up to each listener. We all have very particular tastes, proclivities, and tendencies. Carla and I have every kind of music imaginable in our record collection. We both love (this off the top of my head): Dylan, Beatles, Stones, Modest Mouse, Wilco, Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac, John Coltrane, Led Zeppelin, Richard Thompson, Linda Thompson, Dead Can Dance, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Grateful Dead, Brian Eno, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Anders Parker, Drive By Truckers, Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, Nick Drake, Aretha Franklin, Neutral Milk Hotel, Neil Young, Brian Eno, Lucinda Williams, Son Volt, Otis Redding, Pharoah Sanders, Floating Points, Sly and the Family Stone, Steely Dan, The National, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Nina Nastasia.  

Carla has her very particular favorites: Chet Baker, Nina Simone, Bon Iver, Natalie Merchant, Mavis Staples, Van Morrison, Art Blakey, Yoko Ono, Explosions in the Sky, Karen O. 

I have mine: The Who, Sigur Ros, Mogwai, The Kinks, Miles Davis, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Peter Gabriel, Big Star, Jason Isbell. 

We are always: spinning, singing, dancing. That’s the way to do it. Improving everything! – Jammer