The Falsetto Motivation Factor

Very frequently, the first text I get on any day will be from my friend Sian. Sian is many things - businesswoman, mother, extreme runner, multiple martial artist, Subtlety Aversion Sufferer and, currently, supply teacher, about whom it is whispered in clearly-not-quite-hushed tones that she has a secondary career as an assassin. This, it has to be said, somewhat outstrips her own mother's reputation in the same field - she had to settle for rumours of bloody-minded witchcraft.

Often, in these early morning texts, there won't be any personal detail, just a line of a lyric. Since we share a very particular time and space in the Venn Diagram of Shared Musical Taste, it will usually - not to say invariably - be a line from an 80s or 90s rock or metal song. The recipient will name the tune and the artist, and usually reciprocate.

The lyric, you see, is not chosen at random. It's an indicator of "what kind of day" it is.
Yesterday, she sent me "black lace on sweat" - which the 80s rock-geeks among you, if there are any, will of course know is from Alice Cooper's seminal "Poison". That meant it was an Alice Cooper Kind Of Day - Alice has defined his music as being about "sex and death", but that's not precisely the kind of day it was - it's more about the feeling of his music - slowish, hardish, rebellious,staring, pointy, and more than a little showy.

Today, by contrast, she sent me a Nickelback lyric - tighter, harder, faster, a little more cynical.
On both occasions, the texts came in while I was on the bike, and, as it happened, on both occasions, I was listening to the first two Queen albums - all fantasy epics, kick-ass guitars and demented falsettos - a somewhat self-regarding, highly-strung kind of day, which I suppose when you go on later that day to sing tenor at a carol concert in front of a small but sweatily-packed chapel, is probably accurate. For some reason though, this week, early 70s Queen has been just the thing to power on my legs at what-the-fuck o'clock. Maybe it's the Falsetto Motivation Factor?

What kind of day will it be tomorrow?
I'll let you know.

Oh - weigh-in. Meh - 17stone 10.25. Technically a pound and a half lighter than last week. But of course, this morning I weighed after doing an hour on the bike, which I happen to know takes a pound and a half off me instantly. So probably, when all's said and done, no movement this week, or the biking has yet to take effect - which I pretty much knew going in. Did I mention philosophical whatnots and keeping my head down and pushing the numbers down?

Hmm...Maybe I should move on to the harder Queen albums tomorrow...