Bedlam
Monday, 29 October 2007
Today I re-organised the covers that I made for my CDr’s. I try to make a cover for every CD that comes in or goes out, and that means that I have to keep them organised. It took 50 centimeters of shelf space, but with the new method that I thought out, it will only take half of that space, and it will be much easier to find what I am looking for.
There is too much music coming into my life every day, so i rarely listen to the CD compilations that I make myself. I have a handful of favourites, but I mainly make them for trading. It is funny to see all these hundreds of covers, made for CD’s that usually are only heard by one or two people, or not even that. Not everything is as beautiful as I would like, because I also make the covers when I feel like shit or have no inspiration. But it is a strange diary of what I having been collecting over the years and what kind of records had my interest.
Among the many CDr’s that went through my hands today is one that I wanted to listen to: a collection of songs that have to do with mental illness: Bedlam. I named it after a title of one of the songs, by The Creed Taylor Orchestra.
I am fascinated by the mind, and how it works. I do not really believe in mental illnesses. I think that our minds form a spectrum. All minds are basically working the same way, but the outcome is so different that it is difficult to see the basic pattern beneath the behaviour. To say that one is schizophrenic or paranoid or whatever, seems to me an oversimplification. We are all schizophrenic and paranoid and whatever, but all in a different degree. And everybody who thinks he or she is normal, is nuts. No, it is worse: everybody who takes her or himself seriously should be locked up!
Among the many great songs about the subject of mental illnesses ( Shock treatments by The Low Numbers, I’m normal by The Emperor, Split personality by Esther Ofarim and Jackyll & Hyde by Jim Burgett, just to name a few) is one that I want to share with you today. It is a 45 made by a guy who called himself Absolute Albert, and I is about a subject that is in my Top Ten of interests: hearing noises and voices inside ones head. I hope to return to this subject later, but here is Absolute Albert: