The Medicine Cabinet #12

Music Is My Medicine

by Nayt Housman

Music is my medicine. Is it yours? I ask the public six golden questions to find out if and how they use music to feed the soul.

Kim by Nayt Housman

Kim at the age of 54 feels at this stage of life her passion is to simply get through each and every day. She means it! But this unassuming yet feisty lass also likes to “pop the gun” every now and then. Shooting, as in bang bang with the clay pigeons, will hopefully be Kim’s life passion one day as it was once hairdressing but due to life and children those days are long behind her. So I wanted to find out if and how music has helped her through the joys, trials and tribulations of, well, life.


Who flicks your switch and turns up the volume?

Kim: So I take it you just want to know whoever I listen to? Okay so if I had to choose a favourite song, ooh there’s a few different favourite ones… I like Bowie and I’m rather fond of Rebel Rebel. I turn up the volume for him but particularly that song. Some of the disco music I like (Donna Summer), Simply Red, yeah…


Why are they the pills that cure your ills?

Kim: Well some of them take me back to my youth, 'cause once upon a time I was younger. So the disco stuff is 'cause I was there, I was on the dance floor with Donna, KC And The Sunshine Band. You know? They were there, we were doing it, and John Travolta and you know the Bee Gees. The whole gang, we were just there together.

What kind of high do they give you?

I do get a high. I feel quite energetic when my favourite songs are on and I will dance. Particularly when I have a glass of wine in my hand and that is evident the next morning…when there’s splashes of red wine or what have you all over the floor, smashed glasses *lolz*. Well I like to put my favourite music on when I’m doing the housework because that way I get a horrible job done whilst listening to some of my favourite music and that way it helps me forget what I’m doing. It used to be pan flute music years ago…that WAS a long time ago though.

When do you find yourself craving musical relief?

Ohhhhh let me see…there’s cleaning and the alcohol but I have it so I can enjoy it and usually just me only but my partner, he plays it so the whole street can enjoy it, so it’s so loud it’s almost deafening so to me that’s not okay, but he’s a Pink Floyd fan…

Where does music take you?

Kim: Well I’ve already said back to my youth… buuuut usually in my kitchen. I’m in the kitchen, the TV’s on the wall and I play a lot of DIG music (the station). But back to my youth, my mother was always listening to a lot of 4BH, the radio was always on and as a child at home I can remember being in a kitchen running around listening to Play School on the radio, that was in Townsville, that was on the wireless and I used to dance in the kitchen. So that was my first memory of music and then my second memory would be when I first started hairdressing, my boss had, you know, like a tape recorder with the two big wheels, and he’d play Nat King Cole.


How do you share your music love?

Kim: I used to have a favourite song for, you know…'In The Air Tonight', Phil Collins, I LOVE that song, I used to really (mumbles) ahem. But to be honest with you I’m not an over-sharer because I’m not musical myself however I do have a Fife and I can play 'Doe A Deer' on my Fife.


So you’ve been there, done that, now everything is a bit of whatever… NO. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in life it’s that Phil Collins isn’t a soundtrack to just ‘whatever’. Phil is a powerhouse of bubbling sexual tension and a fervent expression of raw power. 

I shall dub this the ‘Secret Firecracker’ effect. You know you don’t necessarily need and audience to perform to, sometimes all you need is a broom. A beat, and an empty room and you got yourself a rock concert baby!

Doctor Nayt’s prescription this week is to GO CLEAN YOUR HOUSE (you filthy pigs). However, whatever your usual routine is, scrap it. Today you are a famous musician, who is sexy and powerful with the feeling you are untouchable. Sing into that broom handle, slide across the floor in your socks and command that audience, they are putty in your hands. Whenever you have a mundane activity that you find yourself needing to complete alone or in minimal company, you never have to suffer the boredom of it all again when it can transform you into your fantasy idol. Comprende compadre?