What A Song Can Do...
What A Song Can Do...
Just some words and chords manipulated to fit together. Most go by the wayside. You enjoy them for awhile, or hate them for forever, and then the next life-defining mix comes along and bounces the previous life-defining mix out the back door. Some of those little friends show up later and you say, "I haven't heard this song in forever! I love this song!", or "Hey, washed-up band! I loved you for fifteen minutes on the radio. Now you're playing some shitty local-county fair and I'm drunk. Play that song I like so I can go get some more beer!" Such is the life of most songs.
Then there are the happy select few that may mean nothing to your neighbor, but everything to you and you really don't know why. But yet you do, because it's not really the song that's important anymore, it's how someone made that song important for you. That's when you say, "Oh god, I haven't heard this song since....." And you remember. And you get all glowy inside. It can happen at anytime, but mostly occur when you're completely not ready and catch you more than off your guard. The feeling you had when the song was first made important to you returns, and you lose yourself to those few minutes.
In my case, you're sitting at your desk, going over e-mails while listening to an online radio-stream, when all of a sudden a particular Dave Matthews Song comes on (and you don't even LISTEN to Dave Matthews), and the next moment you're lying awake in some random hotel room in Ohio listening to a mix-tape that your best friend made you and aching from the seperation while your family sleeps soundly. You're supposed to be on vacation, but it feels like kidnapping, because the only thing you want at that moment is to be sitting on your best friend's bed, watching little dogs with names like Bubbles scamper and skitter through the halls of her suburban home, Spice Girls playing on her stereo, and talking about all the things that seemed so important in high school but are considered trivial now. That's right... now. Because this moment is ten years in the past. You are a different person, you're in a different place, you've had friends and relationships come and go. But for the three-odd minutes that "The Best of What's Around" plays on your streaming radio (which was still only wishful thinking for the common man in the Summer of Random Hotels in Ohio), you are EXACTLY that person from long ago. Staring at the ceiling, feeling the circulating air from the overhead vent as it ripples the too-crisp sheets you've packed yourself into for the night, and listening to a mix tape which, unbeknownst to you at the time, will become THE MIX TAPE in stories your future self will blog about on his LiveJournal page. A testament to the strength and love and loyalty that you and your best friend share. A hug in the dark. A pure, unadulterated token that provides the home-comfort you so desperately desire as the days and nights in Ohio drag out to an eventual return to home and happiness. It is in these moments, in this random Ohio hotel room that you realize you are in love for the first time. And years down the road you'll discover that, though only recognized on a subconscious level, the tape that she made you was a confession. She was saying "I love you and I need you" with someone else's songs. Ironically, though hundreds of miles away, this is when your friendship solidifies completely and begins its run to something more.
Through the years you'll listen to this tape a few more times and it will continue to provide comfort, but nowhere near as strong as it did in those long-ago days and nights in O-hi-o. That tape was made specifically to keep you company on your trip. It was as if your best friend recognized how much you needed her, and sent along a piece of herself to fill the void. Just a few songs. But the right songs, and the right time.
Now, ten years later, working in an office building in Chicago, one of those songs comes on and brings back every raw emotion in only seconds. It's such a high school story (or something out of a John Cusack movie), but maybe that's the best part. The purity of something like that is so rare nowadays. These are the days of the dating scene, of the bar scene, of eight hour workdays. Mixed tapes and mixed CD's have become punchlines, and speculation about emotional maturity arises for anyone still using such as a means to convey their feelings. I blame the WB.
I can't remember the last time I listened to that tape. I still have it. I'll always have it. It's one of the centerpieces of the BC Museum, as far as I'm concerned (along with the final song of the 8th grade finale, and a certain glossy picture from "Say Anything" that I found tucked under my windshield wiper one day after work). It might be nice to hear it again. It might be needed.
Songs can do lots of things, or nothing at all. I'd wish I'd had a class in college that dealt with nothing but the personal impact of songs... it would certainly have beat Math 125.
Certain songs, however, certain happy songs, can send you back in time right when you need it most. That's what songs can do.
Just some words and chords manipulated to fit together. Most go by the wayside. You enjoy them for awhile, or hate them for forever, and then the next life-defining mix comes along and bounces the previous life-defining mix out the back door. Some of those little friends show up later and you say, "I haven't heard this song in forever! I love this song!", or "Hey, washed-up band! I loved you for fifteen minutes on the radio. Now you're playing some shitty local-county fair and I'm drunk. Play that song I like so I can go get some more beer!" Such is the life of most songs.
Then there are the happy select few that may mean nothing to your neighbor, but everything to you and you really don't know why. But yet you do, because it's not really the song that's important anymore, it's how someone made that song important for you. That's when you say, "Oh god, I haven't heard this song since....." And you remember. And you get all glowy inside. It can happen at anytime, but mostly occur when you're completely not ready and catch you more than off your guard. The feeling you had when the song was first made important to you returns, and you lose yourself to those few minutes.
In my case, you're sitting at your desk, going over e-mails while listening to an online radio-stream, when all of a sudden a particular Dave Matthews Song comes on (and you don't even LISTEN to Dave Matthews), and the next moment you're lying awake in some random hotel room in Ohio listening to a mix-tape that your best friend made you and aching from the seperation while your family sleeps soundly. You're supposed to be on vacation, but it feels like kidnapping, because the only thing you want at that moment is to be sitting on your best friend's bed, watching little dogs with names like Bubbles scamper and skitter through the halls of her suburban home, Spice Girls playing on her stereo, and talking about all the things that seemed so important in high school but are considered trivial now. That's right... now. Because this moment is ten years in the past. You are a different person, you're in a different place, you've had friends and relationships come and go. But for the three-odd minutes that "The Best of What's Around" plays on your streaming radio (which was still only wishful thinking for the common man in the Summer of Random Hotels in Ohio), you are EXACTLY that person from long ago. Staring at the ceiling, feeling the circulating air from the overhead vent as it ripples the too-crisp sheets you've packed yourself into for the night, and listening to a mix tape which, unbeknownst to you at the time, will become THE MIX TAPE in stories your future self will blog about on his LiveJournal page. A testament to the strength and love and loyalty that you and your best friend share. A hug in the dark. A pure, unadulterated token that provides the home-comfort you so desperately desire as the days and nights in Ohio drag out to an eventual return to home and happiness. It is in these moments, in this random Ohio hotel room that you realize you are in love for the first time. And years down the road you'll discover that, though only recognized on a subconscious level, the tape that she made you was a confession. She was saying "I love you and I need you" with someone else's songs. Ironically, though hundreds of miles away, this is when your friendship solidifies completely and begins its run to something more.
Through the years you'll listen to this tape a few more times and it will continue to provide comfort, but nowhere near as strong as it did in those long-ago days and nights in O-hi-o. That tape was made specifically to keep you company on your trip. It was as if your best friend recognized how much you needed her, and sent along a piece of herself to fill the void. Just a few songs. But the right songs, and the right time.
Now, ten years later, working in an office building in Chicago, one of those songs comes on and brings back every raw emotion in only seconds. It's such a high school story (or something out of a John Cusack movie), but maybe that's the best part. The purity of something like that is so rare nowadays. These are the days of the dating scene, of the bar scene, of eight hour workdays. Mixed tapes and mixed CD's have become punchlines, and speculation about emotional maturity arises for anyone still using such as a means to convey their feelings. I blame the WB.
I can't remember the last time I listened to that tape. I still have it. I'll always have it. It's one of the centerpieces of the BC Museum, as far as I'm concerned (along with the final song of the 8th grade finale, and a certain glossy picture from "Say Anything" that I found tucked under my windshield wiper one day after work). It might be nice to hear it again. It might be needed.
Songs can do lots of things, or nothing at all. I'd wish I'd had a class in college that dealt with nothing but the personal impact of songs... it would certainly have beat Math 125.
Certain songs, however, certain happy songs, can send you back in time right when you need it most. That's what songs can do.