Carrie Vaughn - Kitty Goes to Washington

Welcome back, listeners. For those of you just joining us, I'm Kitty Norville and this is The Midnight Hour . I just got a call from my scheduled guests this evening, the band Plague of Locusts, and I'm afraid they're caught in traffic and are going to be a little late, another ten minutes or so. So I'm going to take a few more calls while we're waiting for them to arrive. Our topic this evening: music and the supernatural.

"In the nineteenth century, rumor had it that the great violinist Paganini sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his amazing virtuoso abilities. Many artists are said to be inspired by the Muses. And music soothes the savage beast. What exactly is the mystical nature of music? Are all these tales mere metaphor, or is something supernatural controlling our musical impulses? I want to hear from you. Eddy from Baltimore, you're on the air."

"Hi, Kitty! Whoa, thanks for taking my call."

"No problem, Eddy. What do you have for me?"

"I want to sell my soul to the devil. If I had the chance, I'd do it in a heartbeat. To play guitar like Hendrix—oh man, I'd do just about anything !"

"How about practice?"

"It's not enough. I've been practicing for years . All that time and I can do 'Stairway to Heaven,' and that's it. What Hendrix had? That's not natural."

"Do you think Hendrix sold his soul to the devil?"

"Wouldn't surprise me. So, Kitty—have any idea how I'd go about doing that?"

"What, selling your soul to the devil? Are you sure that's such a good idea?"

"Why not? It's not like I'm using my soul for anything else."

Oh man, talk about missing the point. "I get enough accusations from the religious Right that I'm damning people's souls, I'm not sure I want to put any more fuel on that fire. But the answer is no, I have no idea how you'd go about selling your soul to the devil. Sorry. Next call, please. Rebecca, hello."

"Kitty, hi." The woman's voice was low, vaguely desperate.

"Hello. You have a question or a story?"

"A question, I think. Like, you know when you get a song stuck in your head, and it drives you crazy, and no matter how much you try to think of something else you can't stop it from playing in your head? Right now I have 'Muskrat Love' stuck. It's been stuck there for days. It's… it's driving me crazy." Her voice turned ominous. If she told me she was holding a butcher knife just then, I wouldn't have been surprised.

I tried to sound as sympathetic as possible. "The Captain and Tennille version of the song, I assume?"

She hesitated for a long moment. "You mean there's more than one?"

"Never mind. It's called an earworm," I said. "Scientists have been studying this phenomenon, believe it or not. When they aren't busy with a cure for cancer. Statistically, it seems to affect women more than men, and especially affects people who are slightly neurotic anyway." I had my suspicions about Rebecca.

"So it's not, like… demonic possession?"

"In the case of 'Muskrat Love,' I'm not entirely sure it isn't."

"How do I make it stop?"

"Have you tried listening to the song? Sometimes if you hear it all the way through, it goes away."

"I tried that. Five times in a row."

Well, if you asked me that was her problem right there. "How about a different song, completely different, like something by Ministry?"

"Will that pacify the demon horde?"

So we're possessed by a demon horde , now? "I'm not sure I'd guarantee that. Seriously, most people recommend listening to a different song, trying to get a different song stuck in your head. It's not a perfect solution, but with some songs, any alternative is better."

"What do you recommend?"

" 'I Think I Love You,' by the Partridge Family."

She hesitated a moment, then stammered, "Oh. Oh… God, no!"

Ah, success. "Did it work?" I asked brightly.

"Yes, but… are you sure this isn't worse than 'Musk-rat Love'?"

"You tell me."

"I—I just don't know!"

"Right, while you think about it I'm going to move onto the next call. Hello, Ellen. What do you want to talk about?"

"Hi, Kitty. You know the Orpheus myth?"

I said, "Orpheus. The bard of Greek mythology who went into Hades, and his music was so powerful that he convinced the god of the underworld to release the soul of his dead wife. He was told that he could lead her to the surface, but if he looked back to make sure that she followed, he'd lose her forever. Of course, he looked back. It's a story about the power of music, but it's also a story about trust."

"Yeah," she said, and I caught a sadness in her voice, an uncertainty. "Kitty, you're always talking about myths and legends that have these roots in reality. That sometimes the stories are real, at least partly. Do you… do you think that's ever happened? That music—or anything—is so powerful it could bring back the dead?"

It amazed me sometimes, the stark emotion that people could expose with just their voices. The human voice is the most expressive musical instrument of all.

I closed my eyes to gather myself for the question I had to ask. If she didn't want to talk about it, she wouldn't have called in. "Who did you lose, Ellen?"

"My husband," she said, and her voice didn't even crack. She was just muted. Lost. "Eight months ago. It was cancer. We'd only been married three years. I know I can't bring him back, but… I'm a musician. I play the flute professionally, I'm in an orchestra and everything. Not as good as Orpheus must have been… but I wonder. Music was strong enough to bring us together the first time. Maybe it could bring him back. If I had the chance, if I thought I could, I'd try."

I rubbed my face and pinched my nose to stop tears. This happened every now and then. I didn't know what to say. Nothing I could say would be the right thing.

"Maybe not all the stories start out as true. A lot of them start out as wishes, I think. The Orpheus myth, it takes something powerful that people can do—make music—and turns it into something powerful we wish we could do. Like bring back our loved ones. Ellen, I know this sounds trite, but I'm betting there's a part of him, part of his spirit that comes through every time you play."

"I—I think so, too. But sometimes it isn't enough. Kitty—if it had been me, I wouldn't have looked back."

"I know."

With incredibly bad timing, the studio door opened and let in a swarm of noise from the outside. The producer in the sound booth waved manically and ran out to try to stop them.

I rolled with the punches. "Ellen, thank you for calling and sharing your story. I know I'm not alone in extending my thoughts and sympathies to you. We're going to break now for station ID." I signed Ellen off, then turned to the door.

There they were, crowding into the studio, lugging their instruments. I recognized the lead singer from the band's publicity photo: a skinny punk, twenty-two years old, wearing cut-off jeans, a ragged, oversize T-shirt, and combat boots.

I jumped out of my seat to intercept him. "Rudy? Hi."

Our introduction would determine how the rest of the evening went. Was he a stuck-up, self-absorbed musician type who barely deigned to speak to lesser mortals, or was he a regular guy who just happened to sing in a band?

He smiled at me. "You're Kitty? Hi!" He had a warm expression and easy-going manner at odds with his punked-out persona. He seemed more surfer dude than anti-social rebel. I relaxed; this was going to go well. "Let me introduce everyone. There's Bucky on drums, Len's our guitarist. And Tim there's on bass."

Tim stood out from the rest of the band. The other guys looked like they were in a band: Len had lightning bolts shaved into his crew cut, Bucky had tattoos crawling up both arms. Tim, however, was wearing a cardigan, like he'd been zapped through time from a '50s doo-wop group.