I have a harmless neurological condition called synesthesia, meaning the portion of my brain that senses colors is triggered at the exact same time that I read a word, see a number, or hear a voice or musical note.
Entire individual songs themselves can be exceptionally synesthetically pleasant to me. When playing, they instantaneously make me visualize scenes and shades inside my head, always totally involuntarily. Some songs are more powerful than others. Here are 20 of my favorites that I've been thinking of over the past 24 hours:
1) "Marrakesh Express" (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
These musicians do a marvelous job, all on their own, in creating the sense that you're on a swiftly rolling vehicle of some sort. From start to finish, the wheels (or horse feet or whatever) are kicking up cantaloupe-sized balls of multicolored, sparkling dust.
2) "St. Elsewhere" (Gnarls Barkley)
In my brain, this song produces strikingly similar vibrations as "Marrakesh Express" does, though the rhythm is slower, groovier, and more metallic in texture. Maybe occasional neon-toned laser beams making appearances.
3) "Subterranean Homesick Alien" (Radiohead)
Basically, ALL of the Radiohead OK Computer album strums the strings of the synesthetic section in that lil' skull o' mine. I'm as curious as can be as to whether Thom Yorke is a synesthete too. With "Subterranean Homesick Alien" (a clear nod to the classic Bob Dylan title "Subterranean Homesick Blues"), the musicians seem to say, "If a UFO in the night sky could take the form of an actual song, what would the song sound like?"
4) "Paranoid" (Black Sabbath)
With this one, I am mainly impressed by the contrast between the reverbing clarity of Ozzy Osbourne's vocal texture and the somewhat muffled and growling feel to the majority of the instrumentals.
5) "Je vivroie liement" (Guillaume de Machaut, 1300s; sung by Emily van Evera)
All this one is is just one solo female voice pulling off a 14th-century melody absolutely flawlessly. (When you click the video, go to 30:04. That's where the song is.) Something about medieval French puts off a "color" all its own. The lady's voice itself is something like a lighter, paler, but still shimmering flowy band of gold.
6) "Nimrod" from Enigma Variations (Edward Elgar)
Whenever I listen to a well-put-together presentation of this piece, I never want it to end. Never. This one could go on for 12 hours straight and I wouldn't grow weary of it. I think the colors ingrained in this one are so well-established that anyone who hears can notice them with no trouble at all. Everyone can take a turn being a synesthete with this one.
7) "As the Bridegroom to His Chosen" (The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square)
I have a suuuuper soft spot in my heart for the Tabernacle Choir. Those who know me know exactly why that is. Part of the reason is I sang soprano in the Choir for ten years. I think we may have sung this song one time during that decade. Needs to be sung more often (I'm putting a plug in!). Now, about the color this song sends down my spine—in the sweetest way possible, of course: it's an incredibly soothing, rich, and slightly darker tint of red-violet.
8) "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)" (Garth Brooks)
Picture the deepest and healthiest shade of green for millions of blades of grass in a stunningly large field that's been freshly mowed. Smells great, and you're running barefoot under a sky that looks as though it's about to rain substantially.
9) "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us" (Alison Krauss and Robert Plant)
You're a ghost, floating slowly though a ghost-town house. Multi-storied; there are stairs. It's a bright albeit grayscale world and the only items you see in color are sporadically placed, abandoned coffee mugs and flower vases (that somehow still have freshly-cut flowers inside them) sitting on side tables. Pops of powdery pinks and blue-violets.
10) "Dear Valentine" (Guster)
I always picture me standing on the front porch of the house I grew up in, looking at the house that sat directly across from ours. But I'm in a dream world and I'm sad about something—something unnamed and unknown rooted way down inside me, and I'm anxious in the pouring rain ("now I cry and weep, peek across the street"). Everything is silver.
11) "Hey, Man!" (Nelly Furtado)
One of the first CDs I ever was given when I was a young tweenager. First time I ever laid ears on the first track, I was blown away by where the sounds automatically took me. I was suddenly in a purely white-painted room, and soooo many different-colored flowers were flying around everywhere. Additionally, Nelly Furtado's voice has always been particularly interesting to me. I'm someone who hears people's voices in colors and textures, and only two people I've ever encountered in my whole life possess a near-pure-white-colored voice. Hers is almost totally white, to me. (I'm talking actual colors, not race. Think crayons.) However, for Nelly, you just need to add in a tiny hint of silvery blue-green. Like, so microscopic of a droplet of it that the overall color, after stirring with a whisk, is only barely blue-green. Maybe like a tinge of mint.
12) "Two of Us" (The Beatles)
Four polished brown shoes, snug on the pairs of feet belonging to two friends cheerfully walking down the street together. More silver (many songs have silver in them). The silver comes from the acoustic guitar.
13) "Pieces of What" (MGMT)
I listened to this one on my drive to work early this morning, and it finally dawned on me... I finally realized what it is that this song makes me picture in my head. I picture scenes from my early childhood, when I'm at recess as an elementary school kid and I'm swinging on the big metal swing set. It's the gray of the metal, it's the sound of the mild screeching when the swing is being pumped back and forth by a kid's leg muscles, and it's the feel of the light tan, grainy sand under your feet.
14) "Fire and Rain" (James Taylor)
Another "front porch" song. As the song title might be suggesting, it's raining outside. The wooden planks you're pacing on are wet from the precipitation, and they creak when you take steps. One of the best songs ever written, period. I got to share a stage once with James Taylor, ten years ago. When with my own eyes I witnessed him do this song, I started to cry and I couldn't help myself.
15) "I Miss You" (blink-182)
In my own opinion, it's a moderately eclectic combination of instruments used, which is nicely complemented by the varying singing voices that also are quite different from one another, tonally and texture-wise. The words might or might not give ya the willies, but the rhythms hit me in just the right way.
16) "Royal Orleans" (Led Zeppelin)
My grandparents had a cool kaleidoscope I used to play with a lot when I was at their house as a small child. This whole song reminds me of twisting that kaleidoscope. The song's frequent tritones, presented by electric guitar, are when shiny bits of messy confetti are tossed up into the air in a carefree manner.
17) "Jivaeri" (Yanni)
Ribbons of more very pretty blue-green satin ribbons, floating high up in the heavens. So good. One of my favorite songs.
18) "Dante's Prayer" (Loreena McKennitt)
Midnight blue, which is perfect because I picture this prayer being uttered in the middle of the night, with cold air blowing in the wind. The prayer is also given out of doors, when the person (Dante, I suppose) is standing atop a grassy hill. The stars are the brightest that were ever seen. Note: if you're looking for a song to calm your soul down, give this one a shot.
19) "I Dug Up a Diamond" (Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris)
Mark's and Emmylou's voices are perfect for each other for this track, for what the song talks about. His voice is like the cool, damp walls of the deep, dark mine. You need that voice; it sets the ruggedly mysterious mood. When you add her voice to the mix, that's where the glimmering gemstone appears, and then you just... dig it up!
20) "Yes" (Coldplay)
At about 11 seconds, that's when the person flings their eyes open and startles the crap out of you because you thought they were asleep and they're now suddenly staring right into your soul. "Yes" from the Coldplay Viva la Vida album is probably what I'd consider to be the "darkest" track on the album. But I still love it. I mentioned earlier under #11 that I very rarely come across the color white when listening to the world population's voices. Well, with "Yes" (specifically part one of "Yes"), Chris Martin's voice goes so abnormally low that it alters the ambience in its entirety, and turns everything pretty dang close to unadulterated onyx. There also seems to be a maniacal clock ticking throughout. But, again, I don't mind. This song is dope. Yep. I said dope.
