Baking Music

I love music. I love singing, I love playing guitar and I’ve always, always, got a song stuck in my head (at the moment it’s Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball”, unfortunately, although I think this cover is really beautiful).

However, I prefer working in silence. For my studies I have to read a lot, and I get distracted quite quickly when there’s music playing in the background, especially if the music has lyrics. I always listen to the lyrics of a song, and they determine for a large part if I like it or not. Apparently this is quite strange, since most people I know don’t actually really pay that much attention to lyrics.

A side effect of this is that I always feel the need to sing along — hence the distraction; singing along while reading or writing doesn’t exactly work.

Still, though, music is a big part of my life and I couldn’t live without it. I often unwind from a long study session by putting on some music and dancing around my room, singing along and playing air guitar.

And then there’s baking… To me, with baking comes music.

As I’ve mentioned several times before, baking is therapeutic for me, but that therapeuticness (nice word, eh?) is determined for a large part by music. The first thing I do before I start baking stuff is put on some music — I just don’t enjoy baking even half as much if there’s isn’t some music playing, often at a considerable volume as well. I’ve got to have something to listen to and sing along with, even though I love the process of baking itself as well.

The albums I enjoy listening to most whilst baking are Unplugged by Eric Clapton,  Alchemy by the Dire Straits, (another) Unplugged by Bryan Adams and anything by the Eagles. Yes, I’m a bit of an old fart when it comes to music but music just isn’t what it used to be (that’s a completely different discussion, though!).

Somewhat recently I’ve added another album to this list of baking favourites, namely Bare Bones by Bryan Adams, which is a recording of an acoustic concert from 201o. I went to a similar concert in September 2013 and it was absolutely amazing, so this albums brings back great memories!

I also just realised that all of the albums I’ve mentioned are albums from live recordings. I guess it’s because those tend to have a more intimate or “real” feel to them.

I’ve put a few links below with a favourite song from each of the albums I mentioned (and one in general from the Eagles), and I would love to hear your thoughts on baking music! Do you prefer to bake in silence? If not, and you’re like me, what kind of music do you like to listen to while baking?

My Favourites (the links lead to YouTube)

• Running on Faith – Eric Clapton
• Sultans of Swing – Dire Straits
• The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You – Bryan Adams (not the unplugged version (couldn’t find it) but another fantastic live version)
• Take it Easy – Eagles (wow, this one was hard — love all their songs)
• The Way You Make Me Feel – Bryan Adams