Today’s Theme Music

Here we are, hump day. It’s not a national holiday to go humping but rather the middle of the week hump if you’re a standard Monday through Friday nine to fiver.

The middle is the key. You’re at the hump. Make it over this hump and the rest is much easier. This hump can be in the work week or the school term, the novel, a project, or a relationship. The thing is, this hump must be crossed.

For that, I decided more upbeat music is needed as our background sound. Timbuk 3’s ‘The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades’ seems like an acceptable fit.

The song was a hit in 1986. Reagan was President in America; Marcos was ousted in the Philippines. I was living in an apartment in Columbia, South Carolina, but ended the year living in a hotel on Rhein-Main AB in Germany. The song seemed like such a natural fit to how things were going in my life that I adopted it, cranking it up on the car stereo as we drove around.

It’s not completely upbeat, though. Some lyrics are ironic and satirical, and about the world getting blown up. Some of it seems like a graduation theme song. But mostly, I hitch myself to that refrain, “Things are going great and they’re only getting better. The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades,” and take the spin that it’s not a nuclear explosion that drives the need for shades, but bright prospects for a happier and more prosperous era.

Yeah, right on, brother and sister writers. Think of a future so bright, you gotta wear shades while you type.