Downward-facing dreck

Well, we could talk about what Your Correspondent’s been up to since the last post … the three weeks spent on the farm in NZ with the Dreamboat and his parents; the pathetic progress I’m making on my permaculture course; the impending journey to a French convent to re-unite two siblings who haven’t seen each other in sixty years … but I’d rather talk about something else. I want to talk about all the fucking terrible yoga music out there.

Yes, I’ve taken up yoga. Yes, I am aware that taking up yoga, along with taking up tap dancing, are things that Women Of A Certain Age tend to do.

So be it.

The truth is, I like yoga. It makes me less mental. It makes me so less mental that I haven’t really felt mental at all for quite some time now. Maybe I’m cured — how pleasant! But even if I’m not, at least I’m a lot more in control and a lot less fraught and everything’s a lot better for everyone, all round. Thank you, yoga! You’re the tops!

But back to the music. I was looking to download some so that I could have some variety when I practised (which hasn’t exactly happened with any great regularity yet, but ya never know). I found a couple of albums that had the right kind of eastern-y, yoga-y vibe. But then my eyes — oh unfortunate orbs! — fell upon this. Yes, folks, it’s Yoga To Rick Springfield! Well, fuck me dead!

As if assaulting our sensibilities with Jessie’s Girl way back when wasn’t bad enough, now the song’s back to potentially menace a whole new captive audience of poor innocents wobbling through their Lord of the Dance pose.

But wait! There’s more! How could I possibly not mention Yoga To The Killers? Or Yoga To Coldplay or John Mayer or Grease (fucking Grease! What are these people on?) or … wait for it … Radiohead? What the hell am I doing here? wails some poor individual as they struggle not to fall and break their neck in a Crane pose. I don’t belong here …

There are others but I don’t want to spoil the fun for you of finding them yourself. Go on — head over to iTunes or Amazon and prepare to be quite delighted.

I thought yoga was meant to be uplifting. I thought it was supposed to help people become centred and kind of enlightened. Then again, I’m getting on a bit. I might have missed something. Maybe those strangulated hernias acquired from maintaining a Firefly pose don’t hurt so much when You’re The One That I Want is tinkling away in the background.

I’ve saved the worst — or best, depending on how you look at it — til last. Even if you haven’t clicked on any of the other links, click on this one and know the true meaning of “ghastly”. Words almost fail me at its awfulness. Note the demented goblins on the cover. Presumably, this image is supposed to encourage parents to buy the double CD (containing no less than 72 tracks — what a bargain!) for their own kids. But these ones don’t look chilled and centred and yoga-fied. They look as though they’ve been locked for three days in a vat filled with cocaine.

If that cover isn’t enough to convince you that Ultimate Evil does indeed exist and it’s trying to destroy us all through the medium of putrid yoga music, listen to the Track 2 sample … and then tell me there is no Satan. If you’re powerless to stop the forces of darkness from bitch-slapping you a little more, listen to the sample for Track 22. Heaven help you and heaven help any poor kids whose parents foisted that on them for their birthday.

And if you’re thinking of taking up yoga … well, go for it. Just be sure to inspect the instructor’s music collection before signing on any dotted lines. Otherwise, you could be consigning yourself to a very particular sort of hell — where you’re forced to spend eternity in Corpse Pose, with Summer Nights playing on a perpetual loop.

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