If you were to sum up in sound the essence of YOU, that core of your unique being, what would it be? What does your aural aura emit? If your tombstone had a little sound chip (like a musical Hallmark card) built into its somber grey granite, and a mourner could press PLAY HERE, what would the bereaved hear to make them think, ahh yes, that’s Aunt Beulah alright (or whatever your name is, although Beulah is due for a comeback).
I’m now imagining a graveyard enlivened by hundreds of varied digitized noises as people would press the buttons over and over.
Anyway, let me give you some examples:
George Hamilton: The hum of the glowing light tubes of a tanning bed.
Lindsay Lohan: The tumbling clatter of someone falling down a flight of stairs.
Roger Ebert: The steady clack-clack of a manual typewriter, with a stuck letter “E” key.
Gene Simmons: The airy flip of thumbing through a massive stack of hundred-dollar bills.
Rush Limbaugh: Pig squeal.
Keith Richards: A smoker’s cough and a Chuck Berry guitar solo.
Bernie Madoff: Three descending trombone notes.
Thomas Jefferson: “Brown Sugar”
Simon Cowell: The airy flip of thumbing through a massive stack of Euro 500 banknotes.
Ruben Studdard: Crickets.
Hugh Hefner: The sound of a non-child-proofed container of Viagra being opened.
George W. Bush: The “Benny Hill Show” theme, played at an oil field.
Betty White: The tiny little crispy creaks of a wink and a smile.
Marilyn Monroe: A child’s mechanical music box.
Adolf Hitler: Several thousand tons of rancid sauerkraut being dumped on a Polish sausage factory.
Lassie: Bark, whine, bark, whine, bark, scratch, whine, bark, bark.
Sound is very emotional, and can be very succinct.
If I were to pick my own sound, hmm…well, I think this would do as nicely as anything to sum me up, provided by our friends the White Stripes.
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman