“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” has been my favorite Beatles song for as long as I can remember. Though there are many others I love dearly, this is the one that has settled in my musical soul as a for always and forever favorite. I honestly don’t recall a time when I didn’t know the song, or the lyrics to it, backwards and forwards, nor any occasion where I would not immediately sing-a-long if it was playing (well, perhaps not aloud in some circumstances, but the desire to sing would be there, demanding my attention).

“She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh,
I told her I didn’t,
and crawled off to sleep in the bath.”

“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” by The Beatles
from the album, Rubber Soul (1965)
Song Of The Day – April 18, 2011

One of the first apartments I ever lived in had this amazing clawfoot-style bathtub. The best part about said tub was that I could completely immerse myself in it, water enveloping me, until the world nearly disappeared (or, at least the sounds of it). My ears would fill up with water, and all I could hear was a kind of muted, muffled, undefinable water-logged sound. It was a feeling of freedom disconnecting in such a way, especially while floating about in warm, welcoming, good-smelling water. I’m sure one could analyze such a feeling as being brought back to an in-utero state. Maybe I was taking myself back in some sensory way to a time when I had no real cares in the world.

Sometimes when my insomnia is at it’s worst, and sleep seems an impossibility, I try to recreate the feeling of being underwater in that old, beautiful bathtub that once was mine. I try to let the world, and all my nagging thoughts, turn to that water-logged muffle and let my mind just float. This song comes to mind in those moments, especially the lyrics noted above.

There are nights when I think I’d welcome going “off to sleep in the bath.”