This study focuses on a subgroup of a larger group of patients included in a double-blind, randomised trial with music, music in combination with therapeutic suggestions or control intervention during hysterectomy under general anaesthesia (Nilsson et al 2001).The purpose of this study was to describe patients' experiences of postoperative recovery before discharge from hospital, in two intervention-with-music groups in relation to experience of the patients in a control group.Thirty-one women who underwent abdominal hysterectomy under general anaesthesia were interviewed on their last postoperative day at the hospital. The interviews were analysed with thematic and manifest content analysis.The findings showed that patients experienced recovery in terms of a 'sense of caring', a 'sense of recovery' and a 'sense of coping: When comparing the three intervention groups there was no difference in patients' experiences of caring, recovery or coping.There was, however, a significant difference gained from the manifest content analysis in experience of fatigue, with the patients in the music group experiencing it more positively.The patients described caring in terms of being either cared for or not cared for, which created either positive or negative feelings such as security and calmness, or isolation and loneliness.'Sense of recovery' was shown as a physical and physiological recovery process in terms of pain, nausea and fatigue. In comparing frequencies of reported pain, nausea and fatigue in all three groups together it was found that pain was described positively more often than negatively while the opposite was true for nausea and fatigue.The women also revealed different ways of coping during the recovery process, such as trying to look at the problem objectively, positive thinking, distraction and use of supportive resources. In conclusion the results of the present study show that intraoperative music therapy can make the experience of postoperative fatigue more positive and this finding, together with the results from the main study (Nilsson et al 2001), gives a more complete view of patients' experiences of postoperative recovery after presence or absence of intervention.