Playwrights' Playlist: The Music that Makes Robert Askins Almost Crazy

I don't write to music.
My relationship to music is strange.
A little obsessive.
I listen to songs over and over.
Partially for effect.
Partially cause they scratch an itch in my brain.
Sometimes just cause they make me move.
They get me high in that weird way that music does.
There's an element of old magic left in music.
Like the way it's pre sense.
Like whatever it does.
Is a key that picks a lock in the brain.
we can pretend to understand it
but we don't.
so like i can say to myself.
"be happy
you are enough
everything is going to be fine."
and i don't believe it
not most of the time
but
if i put on
that lady gaga song
"just dance"
i want to move
and that's what's up
fuck the therapy talk
Sometimes i need to be angry
sometimes i need to believe in a god
sometimes i have to feel hope
as i'm walking down the street
sometimes i can't listen to music at all
sometimes i change the song
30 seconds in
and just
cycle through shit
sound
and image
that's our job
to explore the edges of this magic
find the places the drug won't work
contrast the sound image magic
to the reality of family
and poverty
and civilization
the song is to sound
what the novel is to symbol
the play is a score
for bodies
and voices
in hopes of constructing an experience
that illuminates
what it's
like to be alive
the song is free from the burden of illumination
it just gets to make you go further into mood
it can just push your buttons
and push them
and push them
until your like
almost crazy
that's why i listen to music
so i can feel almost crazy
without missing my deadlines.
Here are some things that make me nuts