Let The Music Play On

It’s a Wednesday morning in the car. In the act of habit, I turn the radio on, mindlessly clicking back and forth between channels, struggling to decide if the anecdote to my early morning anxiety is Pitbull or Tears for Fears. Quite suddenly, my finger stops, hovering, quivering a mere couple of inches off the radio screen. The song playing jogs my memory into reminiscence, transporting me out of my current task and into a simpler time, an era this song magically reminds me that I yearn to go back, obliterating the present, and trading in for the past. Why do I so badly want to travel back to my sixteenth year, when I wore Madewell mom jeans and struggled to keep the curl of my bangs under control? This song reminds me of the push and the pull of the perfection of youthful drama, when, in the year this song pulls me back to, reminding me of my desire to relive, I remember was the year both football and one special boy vied in competition for my heart. 

I feel this magnetic, tangible yet intangible pull at my heartstrings whenever Boston’s More Than a Feeling comes on the radio, reminding me of innocent brushes of the hand with an air of interpreted middle school provocativeness, and the power of music to alter the boundaries and conceptions of time, allowing us to stand in the present, yet revisit the cherished emotions of moments slipped between our fingers. Melodies and lyrics, chords and harmonies, can stir in one such vivid recollection, disturbing the fogginess of the present, with the evocativeness of the unforgettable, curating an emotional tug, unearthing surprise at the rawness of what we thought we forgot after the first kiss, the trampoline bounce in the rain, or the yearly gingerbread bake with grandma. Simply put, music unearths our pasts, our memories, for a reminiscent reclamation, in which all that we never realized we wanted to hold onto, becomes what we so desperately wish we could cling to and relive.

Music reminds me most of all of the moments of my life where I have taken a chance on, to quote the virtuoso of eccentric rock, “a crazy little thing called love”. As much as I try to distance myself from the heartbreak, the torture of the unrequited, awkward cheek kisses, while still attempting to hold onto the most tender of moments that made me continue in my quest for love, music always transports me to vividly forgotten snapshots of my romantic encounters. Boston’s More Than a Feeling always reminds me of ice cream-stained lips and nights with a boy whose hair and eyes were so dark he was more Italian than a shot of limoncello. Etta James’At Last jogs my memory of a large New Jersey suburb and set of shy blue eyes and blonde hair. Maren Morris and Zedd’s The Middle  prompts a reminiscence of my first date, my dad driving in the dark, me tugging at my sparkly silver turtleneck wondering if I would catch my breath when I saw him, convinced in my mind we’d one day tell this story to our children. Taylor Swift’s Sparks Fly reminds me of my uncharacteristically country boy choice, worn down flannels, tickly but passionate beard-influenced kisses, and the smell of gasoline permeating through the air conditioning of malfunctioning vintage luxury cars. You see, with music, I always remember more than I think I will ever remember, some memories being things I didn’t want to remember, ones I didn’t think I could handle remembering. Somehow, I manage to recollect the way that my hands felt clinging to the shoulders of my sophomore year crush, familiar as strangers but not by touch, awkwardly swayed under the hypnotic blue lights flooding the dance floor at prom. This is proof of music’s innate ability to stir reminiscences, the extent to which what we are suddenly pushed to remember what we hoped would fade in emotion, or never would expect to be so vivid, so perfectly then in the now, so past in the present, in its unexpectedly extreme hold over us. “It never goes away” is what the melody and lyrics that pull at your heart say, as they pull another memory out of their sleeve to throw into the mix of remembrance. 

Yet it’s more than just first kisses and tentative teenage glances that music makes us remember and escape to. There are certain songs, particular melodies, and chords, that make us unexpectedly contemplate the subtleties of everyday life, the mundane suddenly being elevated to the importance, as Shake it Off instills in us the memory of a particularly nasty mother-daughter fight. Suddenly, Lady Madonna reminds us of dancing in our childhood bedroom, under the psychedelic illumination of a strand of colorful lights, holding mom’s hand, forcing dad to loosen his sleazy businessman shirt, attempting, like the Beatles with a “little help from your friends”, to dance their divorce into oblivion. What is remembered is the convoluted moments of your life, vying to not be forgotten. It is the mundane that we forget to appreciate, it is the simple tasks and moments that we forget to get lost in, immersing ourselves in the gratitude brought by triviality. Yet, it is the mundane that music teases out, bringing it to the forefront of our minds, never letting us forget that we are incomplete if we forget the simplest occurrences of our lives, we are hating ourselves if we forget our mistakes and our missteps, we are more complete and beautiful when we hold on to every messy, imperfect, quirky moment of our lives, for those moments reflect ourselves, they are who we are. By teasing out the forgotten, aggressively attempted to be discarded, or the moments we try so hard to remember every single detail of, it gifts us with the realization that we are only perfect, only perfectly ourselves when we try to hold onto all of what was. 

For each of us, music is not static, but rather sentient, a ceaseless interplay of self-expression, self-identification, remembrance, and reminiscence. Special to each of us in no way like the person next to us, a single song is a million memories, each spectacularly individual in memory and meaning. However, in our present moments, we may feel trapped and cornered in uncertainty, recklessly attempting to piece together the most comforting fragments of our pasts, unable to find solace in this uncertain future– music brings forth our memories. Music brings forth our most joyful, uncertain, messy, embarrassing, romantic and unforgettable moments to bring us joy in the past tense of time, but also to ground us, to remind each of us that we have made it through the messy, we have capitalized on the uncertain to be solid in the recklessness of youthful days before. We have had our hearts broken, our lips kissed, our prom dresses grab at our waists, our cheeks stained with tears, our diaries filled with complaints and dreams of do overs. We have cried over a stranger, we have wished for another year in our current year. Music reminds us, through reminiscence, of the strength we all hold to get by, recollecting in us how so many times before we doubted our ability to ever make it through life’s tragedies and embarrassments. Yet, as music teaches us, we all have the ability we have to flourish, if we embrace the messy and the mistakes, the embarrassments we later laugh hysterically about. All of our favorite artists croon about mistakes, their art embracing and thriving on embarrassment and joy, sadness and regret, laughter and grief, so why can’t we follow suit? 

No matter where we all come from, no matter the differences that separate our lives,  we all have in common the potential to embrace life, the potential to embrace “it” (it meaning every part of life) all, music proving, justifying, and solidifying that. Now, we just have to let the music play on, and truly embrace all that melodies, chords, lyrics and our favorite songs have to offer.

• #memories
• love
• music