You Don't Choose THE Song

What I have learned along the way in my pool journey is that certain songs that come to mean meaning for us in our pool journey are not chosen by us.

We might imagine that our first big win will be to the Rocky theme song, right?  Or as our team is playing in the finals, we all hear "We are the Champions" by Queen blaring from the speakers.

Or, if we are in a bar out of state, "Turn the Page" comes on by Bob Segar or "Bad Company" by the band of the same name.

Well, those things don't even come close to reality.

Sorry.

LOL.

Sure, we all have certain songs or type of songs that give us a little skip in our step as we play pool, but the songs that exude winning or champion do not come on magically as we drop the last 9-ball or lift the trophy up over our head for the crowd.

No, no, no.

What happens is, though, is something even cooler!

When I won my very first ladies event, a tournament on the Fast Eddies Tour way back when, I was completely in the zone and the song that was playing as I was playing with no distractions and light on my feet was Chris Brown's, "I Can Transform Ya."  Sure, I loved hip hop anyway, but I barely new the song.  But after I won, I LOVED the song.  And what happens now is pretty damn sweet:  every single time I hear that song, it takes me back to that win, that first win, that amazing win!  It's like I'm right there in the zone in San Antonio at Fast Eddies snapping off my first tournament.

It turned out to be my personal Rocky theme song.

So, while we think of certain champion songs, the ones that come to mean the most to use are chosen for us while we are succeeding.

Music To My Ears

Some songs really hit home with us, right?

Just as music can make us go back in time to when we were little, or think of loved ones who have passed, or think of current or previous love interests, so can certain songs take us back in time to certain pool instances in our lives.

On the way to work I heard Justin Timberlake's, LoveStoned, and it brought me right back to my dedicated practice sessions days.  I had a goal one time to practice at least 1-2 hours every week for one whole year by myself on a 9-foot table.  I had a certain playlist and listened to it every single time.  And the first song was LoveStoned, which is about an 8-minute song.   And very upbeat and "fun," too.

When I hear that song now, I remember vividly the dedication to the game I loved and how the effort and time I spent practicing really helped me become my future-self of a great player.

Funny how just a song can do that, huh?

I saw Justin Timberlake in concert in Vegas 2-3 of years ago.  If he didn't sing LoveStoned, I promised myself I would walk up to him on stage and kick him in the balls.  Luckily for him, he sang the song :)

A friend of mine all of a sudden will start to play lights out when AC/DC comes on while she's competing.   She would be more carefree and happy and had a spring in her step when the AC/DC songs came on.

I like hip hop music and I also get a little spring in my step and play more comfortably being able to sing the song in my head to some great hip hop, happy-to-me songs while I'm competing.

I remember VERY vividly the song that was playing when I won my first Fast Eddie's Tour stop - I was /almost/ singing it out loud, as I skipped around the table (not really skipping lol) and won my first-ever big tourney.  I had no awareness of anything else (I was completely in the zone) and so when I Can Transform Ya comes on by Chris Brown, I smile big and reflect on that awesome win.

Music has an amazing effect on us.   Sometimes it makes me change the channel, lol, other times it makes me turn the volume up!

We’re all familiar with how certain pieces of music can change our mood, get us  motivated, or help our concentration.  Enjoy the happiness is causes you inside when you play pool.  And, enjoy the memories.

Play That Funky Music

I was at league last night and we are a traveling league.  I had not been to this bar before.

I thought it was much smaller - it looked tiny on the outside, but it's fairly large.

What I noticed right away was the music was SUPER loud!

When I tried to talk to my teammates, we had to lean toward each other to hear what we were saying.  It wasn't disturbing my play, but it did interfere with me trying to catch up with my friends.

A lot of patrons in the establishment were playing hip hop-type music.  So, I knew almost every song and therefore it didn't really bother me how loud the music was.

But one of my teammates didn't really like it, so she would grab her phone while she sat in her chair to pay for a song from an app on her phone.  Then that song she picked would be played on the jukebox.  And she would pay EXTRA to have it "play next."

So, she interfered with the jams by playing country music, lol.

I don't like country anymore, and evidently neither did the patrons because as soon as a country song came on, they would head to the jukebox to put in money to pay for hip hop songs.  All the time not realizing one of my teammates was kinda "controlling" what would play next from her chair.

lol.