A Playlist for Life

What an amazing world we live in today.  It is truly extraordinary that we can carry around with us a device not much bigger than a postage stamp that holds thousands of our favorite songs performed by exceptionally talented musicians.

I, like many others in today's technological world, store music on a device and listen to it with little earbuds.  I have maybe a thousand songs in total.  They span a range of popular music from my youth, today's popular music, classical, country, big band, ethnic, folk, acapella, and on and on - kind of a mish-mash of many different styles. 

But what I've found is that mostly I listen to the same one hundred or so songs over and over.  They have essentially become the soundtrack of my life.  Many songs evoke a sense of place, or a memory of certain people, times, or events. I once bought a CD from a street musician who sat under a tree in southern Spain playing his classical guitar.  I don't often play it but each time I do I am instantly transported back all those years to that magical place.  I wonder why we seem to be hard-wired to respond to music in that way?  Do we like watching movies with a corresponding soundtrack because we are predisposed to do so or, because movie producers have trained us to like and expect it? I don't see that music has any direct connection to survival - it must be because we are about more than just survival.