Livre d'Or

I have different playlists/stations for different purposes. One of my common purposes is, like you, to keep other corners of my brain occupied while I'm working on things that don't take up my entire attention. If I find a song is attracting too much of my attention, I shuffle it off work-specific playlists. I have a Pandora station that I've seeded with tearjerkers, which for me are often ballads of actual tragedies, and stuff that portrays fellowship lost.

I think my most common use of music for a specific purpose is songs that remind me of characters and moods when I'm writing something. If I keep a playlist of the correct mood, I'm more likely to get the mood correct in the writing.

Most of my thinky-songs are connected to certain times in my life, so Miley Cyrus's "See You Again" makes me think of a specific group of friends who used to be everything to me, and why that may not have been my best life choice, even though it was probably the best one I could see to take at the time...

I can't think of a specific song that makes me think about Life In General, though I'm sure there are songs like that.