The World in Six Songs by Daniel J. Levitin

Love: He explores the paradoxical quality of the romantic songs we sing and how they often express some ideal version of real human relationships.

He proposes evolutionary origins behind why music may be so powerfully connected to the rituals that express ultimate human concerns.

Religion: He includes here all the songs we use for the important rituals of our lives such as “Pomp and Circumstance” and “The Wedding March” and why they are not appropriate outside certain settings.

Knowledge: Many of these are songs that convey information that help us learn everything from the alphabet (A-B-C-D-E-F-G) to counting songs like “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” to “Thirty Days Hath September.” He explores why sung words are so readily remembered (as I found out the Karaoke night when I got called out to sing “American Pie” and discovered I knew most of it from memory!).

Comfort: These are the cathartic songs that lift our spirits in times of crisis, from “God Bless America” (during the aftermath of 9/11) to many country and blues songs, that comfort through the release of prolactin, a hormone associated with crying replacing sorrow with a kind of peacefulness and hopefulness for the future.

Singing these songs often releases endorphins and oxytocin, hormones often release during peak physical experiences including sex. These include everything from ad jingles like “Sometimes I feel like a nut” to “You are My Sunshine” and often have a TRIP structure (Tension, Reaction, Imagination and Prediction).

Joy: Songs that express delight, the thrill of a wonderful experience, or of just being alive.

Friendship: These are the songs that emphasize the bonds within a group, from the classic “Smokin’ in the Boys Room” to protest songs like “For What It’s Worth” that promoted solidarity around a cause.

Levitin, I could reorganize the music in my collection into six categories–at least the music meant to be sung.

Summary: Proposes that all the world’s songs can be grouped into six categories, and explores the evolutionary, cultural, and musical reasons for each category.Īccording to Daniel J.

The World in Six Songs by Daniel J. Levitin