music of the mind

Since no-one seems interested in my political opinion.. *sniffs* ..here's something I've been thinking about for a bit now. Does anyone other than me have a soundtrack to their life? Not, obviously, one audible to everyone else - just music playing in your head. All the time.

I wake every morning with a song/tune in my head, it's usually the first thing that I consciously notice (unless the cat has woken me by chewing on my toes again..). I almost never remember dreams these days and I don't sleep much anyway, maybe 6-7 hours a night, but the music is often the last thing I remember before dropping off and almost always the first thing upon waking up. On a couple of occasions I've fallen asleep and woken up with the same tune and it's been quite eerie - almost as if I've not slept at all but time has just jumped forward to the morning. A very depressing thing on a weekday..

The morning music doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what I've been listening to lately. Or even what I actually like - although I've thankfully never had to awake to Usher or Britney inhabiting my head. Sometimes I've no idea where they come from, especially when I don't have the song in my collection or haven't heard it for a long time, years even. But I guess my subconscious must be mulling things over while I sleep as I often come to a deeper liking of a particular song after playing it over in my mind.

Recent first songs of the day include:

Little Know It All - Iggy Pop
Whiskey Tango - Tanya Donelly
Momentum - Aimee Mann
Miracle Drug - A C Newman
Twilight - Elliott Smith
Beat on the Brat - The Ramones
Quattro (World Drifts In) - Calexico
Colossal Insight - Roots Manuva
Power to the People - John Lennon
Girl U Want - Devo
I'm Waking Up to Us - Belle & Sebastian
India - Psychedelic Furs
Breakdown - Jack Johnson
Return to Oz - Scissor Sisters
Sunrise Over Sea - John Butler Trio

I don't know if there's a theme there, or even if their needs to be. I'm not really looking for an explanation and I'm usually quite happy with the choices my subconscious makes, it just got me wondering whether anyone else experiences something like this? I'd heard recently that musicians are much more likely to have an internal musical score but, since I'm about as musically talented as your average draught excluder, I don't see how that applies to me.

Perhaps I was a jukebox in a previous life.