Classical
“They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast.” Eagles, Hotel California
Listen! Words are great, but voices are better. Press play and give your eyes a break.
Do you have that one song you turn to when you’re sad, mad, happy, confused, or in love? Ever had a memory come to you when you heard the first few notes? What happens to a song when the memory doesn’t make you feel good?
Music has this uncanny ability to transport us—to calm us down or hype us up. Some of my favorite memories have a song playing in the background: on a car radio, over a speaker in a restaurant, or spun by a DJ at a wedding. But not all songs are filled with happiness and sunshine—some carry the echo of a strumming guitar solo and raw, passionate lyrics.
A friend recently asked me what genre of music I listen to, and I told her it depends on my mood. It wasn’t something I’d ever thought about, but according to my Spotify account, my taste is an eclectic blend: rock and pop from every decade, 90s rap and R&B, jazz, Sinatra-era vocals, and the occasional show tune. It’s a mixture so varied, I’m not sure even Spotify’s algorithm knows what to do with it.
No matter what kitchen I’m cooking in, there is always music playing. My Dad told me he could tell what kind of mood I was in just by what was humming from the speaker in the kitchen. I’ve tried cooking without music—it never goes well. Somehow, those lyrics and beats are my secret ingredient.
I’ve had dozens of surgeries at this point, performed by some of the most skilled surgeons this country, and world has to offer. More often than not, when you’re wheeled into an operating room, you’ll hear music of some sort.
Just like in my kitchen, the tone of the music often reflects the intensity and stakes of the instruments laid out on the sterile drapes. In the operating room where my gastroenterologist performs my routine colonoscopies and endoscopies, there’s usually Ella Fitzgerald. Once, it was Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell singing Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. During a recent liver biopsy, it was 80s rock.
In those sterile rooms, the statistics were solid, the hands performing these routine procedures had done so hundreds of times, over thousands of hours.
Music has also been instrumental in helping me cope with chronic, debilitating physical pain. No pain management physician has ever listed music as a coping strategy, yet I’ve found it to be one of the most effective. It has the power to distract my brain just enough from the stabbing, burning pain radiating through my nerve receptors—the kind of pain that narcotics can only pacify so much.
Pain and I have become copasetic. I think of it as a sort of custody agreement—something my body has decided it can’t live without. So, I’ve found ways to mitigate, rather than litigate. A strict daily regimen of yoga, meditation, or cardio has become my norm. And, of course, there is always music.
Of the many times I’ve been wheeled into an operating room, one in particular has always stayed with me. It wasn’t a surgery with especially high stakes, but it directly followed a series of five consecutive emergency, life-saving operations.
I had been on life support for two weeks. With each surgery, my parents signed off knowing the odds of me coming out alive were low. My surgeon, Dr. D, had performed several other operations on me before this. This time, he would be attempting techniques in my abdomen that he had never done before.
After I was brought out of the medically induced coma that had been keeping me alive but unaware, I was told Dr. D slept at the hospital every day for a week. He performed five life-saving surgeries during that time, consulting with surgeons from other hospitals on a technique he knew could save my life—one he’d never been trained to perform.
His music of choice? Classical. Always classical. The kind played by orchestras for centuries—the symphonies that carry you from despair to triumph. One moment soft and gentle, the next swelling with power.
After completing the usual pre-op routine of signing paperwork and repeating back the details of the day’s procedure, Dr. D asked me a new question—one that wasn’t part of the routine.
“Hey Ashley, what are you listening to?” he asked, gripping his clipboard as he stood from the chair he’d slid beside my gurney. I had just taken out my headphones as he walked in.
“Today's lineup? Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, Steve Winwood. Feeling 70s today,” I said.
He smirked and nodded. “Eagles,” he said, walking away.
As they wheeled me down the usual white-tiled hallway to the operating room, I spotted Dr. D at the computer with the resident he was training. The two nurses and the anesthesiologists wheeling me in suddenly stopped in the doorway, all visibly stunned.
Over the operating room speakers, Hotel California was playing.
Dr. D walked over to my gurney and said, “Let’s get you transferred.”
As I scooted onto the operating table, I smirked. “Hotel California is fitting,” I said. He knew I’d say something sarcastic, I added, “I hope you know where you’re stabbing me with that steely knife.”
After two years of trying to get this man to crack a smile, I finally did it. He burst out laughing and said, “Knew I picked the right song.”
His colleagues stood there, stunned. Dr. D—the most classical of all physicians. Stoic, lyrical in his movements, with the best poker face I’d ever encountered. But for a brief moment, with Don Felder and Joe Walsh strumming electric guitar solos in the background, he broke with laughter. In the same room where, just weeks before, he had fought to save my life surrounded by classical hums.
The procedure lasted only two hours—one he’d performed hundreds of times before. Everything went smoothly. As I was being transferred upstairs to an inpatient room for overnight observation, one of the nurses from the operating room told me she’d worked with Dr. D for ten years and had never heard him play anything other than classical music.
Dr. D’s nurse practitioner smirked and told her she wasn’t surprised. She said if anyone could get him to crack, it would be me—and that she was proud of me. I just smirked and said, “Next time, Fleetwood Mac. He needs some Stevie Nicks and her tambourine in his life.”
A friend recently told me she couldn’t listen to a certain song anymore because it reminded her too much of an ex. It made me think of all the songs that have accompanied me through the happy, sad, triumphant, stagnant, and brutal times in my life—songs I’ve never removed from my playlists.
It made me think of that operating room and Hotel California, and how my first memory of that song was from a Bose boombox playing an Eagles CD in my childhood living room. I was five or six years old, twirling around and singing, “Mirrors on the ceiling / pink champagne on ice.” And how I recently was twirling in my kitchen in NYC singing, “They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast.”
Isn’t it strange how a song can bring you back to both the best and worst moments of your life? And yet, for some of us, we keep listening—why is that?
LET’S KEEP THE CONVERSATION GOING! Each week, I’ll share some questions at the end of my post– leave your thoughts in the comments, scribble them in your journal that week, or debate them with your dog (who is, of course, always on your side). Bonus points (which exist only in our hearts) if you drop a question this post made you think of in the comments below!
What song instantly transports you to a specific memory?
If you had to create a playlist to capture your life’s most defining moments, what five songs would be on it?
Do you have a childhood memory connected to a specific song or artist?
Think of a song you will never skip, no matter how many times you’ve heard it.
Pick a song you would force your nemesis to listen to on repeat forever. Why did you choose it? (As always, best for last!)
ADD TO PLAYLIST! Every post includes a music lyric to set the tone for that week. Music has been an important part of my journey, and I hope these songs are added to yours. My goal is to build a playlist, but in the meantime, I hope you’ll add these songs to your favorite playlists!
“They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast.” Eagles, “Hotel California”
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