Memories in music:
This is my first blogpost. I wasn't sure what I wanted to write about, but I knew I wanted to write something today. I was just having a conversation with a friend I hadn't talked to in a while, and I started talking about how I like to shazam songs from places I visit and my friends' cars and whatnot. When I thought more about why I liked doing that, I had the realization that I like it because I can then listen to those songs and be right back where I was when I found the song. But then, that got me thinking in broader terms, and then another realization came along: I like listening to music as much as I do, because I store memories in each song! Memories of places I've been, memories of people I've met. Memories of things I've seen, things I've felt, things I've wondered about.
For example, the song "Escaping from a Violent Time" by the band Bad Sounds. I got it from shazam, when I heard it playing in a Mod Pizza. Where was that Mod Pizza? Washington state! I was visitng in the summer, and my friend Colin told me we had to go to Mod Pizza because it was the best pizza around. We had just met at that time. Every time I listen to the song, it takes me right back. I can feel the sun shining through the windows, I can hear Colin talking about how Brian David Gilbert is one of his favorite YouTubers, and about how him and his then girlfriend started dating. I got to go to their wedding last November!
Another example, the song "Buttons" by meija. When I listened to it for the first time, I didn't relate to it, and so I didn't think much of it. It played, then the next song played, and I didn't listen to it again. I didn't listen to it again until later. I was grieving the loss of someone important to me who had passed away in 2022, thanks to cancer. I was trying to distract myself, and so I told a girl I was talking to that I liked her. She was really mean to me from that point on. But I stayed. That was when I heard the song again. It is not a pleasant memory, but the song has since been and will likely remain a top 10 song for me. Why? Because when I listen to it, I remember what listening to it for that second time felt like. How silly I felt for not getting it the first time around, how thankful I was to listen to something that let me know that someone else got it. As much as it hurt, it numbed the deeper cutting pain of the loss. So I let my buttons get pushed. Obviously, looking back on it, that was not at all a good place to be in. But when I listen to it, I am taken back there again. I remember how hard that grief was, and think about how it has changed. I remember how I was not careful about who I let in to see that grief, and how I never want to do that again. I remember how much my friends and family cared about me even though I had a hard time seeing it then. I listen to it, and I'm grateful. Grateful to be where I am now when I remember where I was then.
The song "Lemonade" by Circa Waves and Alfie Templeman takes me back to summer in Florida. Washing dishes in my parents' kitchen, using a bluetooth speaker and singing along with my siblings. Sitting at the poolside with my feet in the water at my grandparents' house. That pool has been filled in since then.
The song "Somewhere" by Hauskey makes me remember being in the car with one of my older sisters on the way to a friend's house. I mixed up the choruses. The first one has a line that goes "And you're not always thinking of everything you coulda got right" but I sang the line from the second chorus, which goes "And you're not always thinking of everything you didn't get right". My sister laughed at me when I messed it up, because I was singing about not thinking of everything I didn't get right when I was getting something I coulda got right wrong when that's exactly what the song was talking about. By the time we got to the actual line, I couldn't help but laugh too.
For my last example, "Run the World!!!" by Dayglow. This is another song that will always be a top 10 for me. It is an interesting one to me, because there are many different things that I think of and remember when I listen to it. Primarily though, I think about what I had been going through when I first resonated with it. I had grown up in relatively small circles, and the first time those circles expanded was when I joined band. I made a lot of new friends there, and some of those guys I got along with better than I was able to get along with the guys I had known my whole life. When they were playing sports, I was programming, when they were talking about girls they thought were hot, I was just talking about girls I was friends with, when they were joking around, I wasn't laughing, and when I was joking around, they weren't laughing. But the guyfriends I made in band? The first guys I actually really clicked with on a personality level. Time marched on, and I grew to consider them my best friends. Things didn't stay the same though. They had different views than I on some things, and they chose a lifestyle that I could not bring myself to support. I cared about them still. But they only wanted me to change my mind. When I did not, they cut me off, and gave me several reasons why I was the worst friend they'd had. I have always tried to be a good friend, and so when provided with "evidence" that I was failing, I believed it. And that hurt me deeply. It still stings to think about it. Listen to the song! See if you can figure out why that's what it makes me remember.