Every now and again, I lose sight of the things that I’m thinking about and working on and get caught up in a song that’s playing. Sometimes it’s a track I’ve heard more times than I can count. Sometimes it’s a new release – something that I haven’t heard before. But that’s not the part that matters really. What matters is that music can shake off time, place, memories, dreams and ideas.

And, of course, that’s got me thinking – especially because of some reading that I was doing earlier.

See, I was reading through a motivational book designed to help the reader live his or her best life. As is often the case for me, it was related to business rather than just to living a full, rich life that managed to draw on family, friends, creativity and all that stuff – but there were two different sections that jumped out at me. The first was all about personal branding because it’s a topic that I see referenced often. The second was about visualization and triggers, and it suggested that one strategy is to take advantage of a song.

The author related a couple of stories about different songs that triggered memories and reactions as a segway into the power of music to create change, but wasn’t really talking about personal theme songs. And that’s fine, really; it’s just that I took it somewhere else and allowed it to become more real for me. After posing the question quickly on Twitter – just asking if others had a personal theme song – I had two responses within moments (which is a big part of why I appreciate Twitter in general, but I digress).

Courage matters and I can definitely appreciate choosing to relate to a song that talks about the importance of being brave in the moment. Relating to a song on any level – finding anything that truly speaks to us – makes such a difference that it’s hard to quantify. Even if we don’t share the specifics of that song, it’s okay.

For me, the reality is that there’s no one song that jumps out as a theme song – and I wonder why that is. The closest may be Melissa Ferrick’s “Somehow We Get There” – it’s a video that I used to embed on this site. But lately there’s something about it that strikes me as melancholy despite the fact that I can remember the goosebumps it gave me the first time that I heard it. There are other tracks that jump out at me, but all of them tend to have a gnawing not quite right vibe about them.

So, while I work on figuring out my own personal theme song – something that will continue to propel me forward – I’ll just repose the question here: Do you have a personal theme song? If so – what is it? If not, would you like to have one?