I was studying for a Western Civilization quiz I thought I had scheduled for today and while glancing at the map of 1800s Europe the word ‘Copenhagen’ next to the little star for the city jumped out at me from the newly reformed country of Denmark.

Copenhagen. City. Copenhagen. 

All of a sudden my brain synapsed in a weird way and a song I had not thought of in years popped into my brain.

I could not for the life of me remember the name of the song, the artist, or anything. I remembered  about 3 lyrics but most of all the feeling of the song. So chill. A nice groove. Dope. I loved that song. It was 2006. I was in highschool. I would listen to it on my Zen MP3 player on repeat for hours while I did homework, road the bus, or practiced basketball. 

This seriously distracted me from studying, but it was Western Civilization so eh. I now had a mission to find this song. I tried searching then and there with my Iphone via google. No luck.

In Digital Branding class today we watched a video from Cannes about the science of creativity presented by DraftFCB. I found it pretty ironic that I would be faced with a problem relating to a Feeling of Knowing - a concept that was discussed at length in the video.  Basically its when you know that you know something and have knowledge of it even when you cannot think of the answer. Like someones name on the tip of your tongue. From seeing the science of creativity live in Cannes when I was there this summer and with the refresher course earlier today I knew I just had to persevere and eventually I would have the answer to some sweet sweet jams. 

Later that night I tried searching again on my computer. No luck. The longer I went without this song though, it seriously began to bug the hell out of me. 

Then I remembered I had this song in my music catalog way back in highschool. Now this was 2 MP3 players and 2 Ipods ago. But I did back up my old computer before its HD was wiped when I left for LSU. 

I rummaged through a bin in my closest and pulled out 1 of my TB external HD to see if my old music catalog had been backed up on it. It indeed was! But I still didnt know what it was called or who did and there were a thousand music files separated into maybe a hundred or more artist folders. But I had a ‘feeling of knowing’ where I knew I recognize the file when I saw it. 

I still had “Copenhagen… city don’t close…” echoing through my head but that was not helping me. I knew I just had to keep driving forward. 

As I went through the files I notice a bunch of shitty rap and other random tracks. Then I saw an Artist called Nighthawks with the song Nighthawks (remix) inside. ‘Nighthawks… Copenhagen…’ Holy shit. In the science of creativity video a Moment of Incite is basically an epiphany where an answer comes out of the blue and you know without a shadow of a doubt that it is correct.

Well seeing the artist Nighthawks was my trigger to have a moment of incite to finding the answer to my search. I knew 100% that Nighthawks was the name of the track I searching for and I even had a fuzzy notion that the artist started with the letter ‘P’ to boot!

I scrolled down to the Ps and right when I saw Pato I knew that my search was over. Inside was 00-.Nighthawks.mp3. lol I had it!

It was a bizarre way to find it but very satisfy to resolve a nagging brain hiccup that a map of 1800s Europe from my Western Civ textbook randomly free-associated me to. I also do not know why it was so coincidental that this brain phenomenon occurred today right after watching the DraftFCB video.

Whether it is an after effect where I noticed a common brain phenomenon and am attributing to it a greater significance than I would normally place after watching the video. #placeboeffect. Or maybe it is simply explained as having offshoots of creativity after thinking all day about how thinking of creativity actually works. #meta. Either way it is still odd that my brain had the huge callback to 2006. #weird.

So I do not know why some deep dark recess of my brain is thinking of Pato and Nighthawks once again. It may or may not be a sign but regardless my brain thinks it’s time for me to have some Nighthawks back in my life again. 

So Jam on. I love it. 

dawn sun shining down on the Nighthawk
still burning cuz the city don’t close
still stepping cuz the beat don’t slow