Distributed Mind

I and some friends of mine were discussing "strange music" last night. The one couple was playing Tom Waits and Spike Jones for us as there example of strange music. I hadn't heard Waits before, but of course Spike Jones I am familiar with. I said that Spike Jones is sometimes too weird even for me. Some of his "music" is of course just not very musical, but some of it is just, well, strange. The strangest part of Spike Jones music is usually the downright bizarre instrumentation. Not that I am not used to that by now - after all I have cited Weird Al as being responsible for history's best gurgling solo - but still, when there is enough of it at once it can have a jarring effect. But then today, inspired by a quote in "Southern California Purples" (by Chicago, of course!), I decided to listen to "I am the Walrus." It's amazing what enough listening will desensitize one to: this song, well, I mean, we knew it was weird, but have you really listened to it lately? The sounds are so bizarre! (And of course, as far as the Beatles' later work goes, lots of it was pretty strange, so while this might be an extreme example it is far from unique.) So, thus, I was shown to be ignorant of how strange the music I routinely listen to really is. The irony is that I tend to think of the Beatles as mainstream compared to a lot of what I listen to. But I guess mainstream does not exclude strange. I thought it was a funny twist to the whole thing.