It´s pretty magical how music can take you right back to a certain time in your life. Suddenly you remember exactly how it felt to be the version of you that the song reminded you of.
I´m, uhh...how do you say this...extremely goddamn sentimental? But, we all knew that. Music is really what sends me over the edge. Songs that make me crave a specific moment.
´Lightning In A Bottle´ by The Summer Set takes me right back to being thirteen. I was with Sara (shocker) and it was right around the time I really started getting obsessed with finding music. I found the band through Harry Styles because he tweeted about them (classic) and it just so happened that this song became a obsession for Sara & I - a few weeks later. To this day it´s a song I remember every lyrics to. But when that song played...I think my life changed. I remember how I FELT, you guys. I remember how my 13 year old self felt, jumping up and down with Sara, screaming every word and making up our own dance moves. I think that was the first time I ever said "fuck" in my entire life, to be honest. It felt like the closest thing I´d ever get to teenage rebellion.
And yet still, 9 years later, that song takes me right back.
Other songs, carry bittersweet memories of moments I don´t crave at all. (There are still like 10 Taylor Swift songs I can´t listen to without crying, is what I´m trying to say.)
I was all up in my perfectly poreless grill in the backseat of the taxi, when I realized what song had just come on.
´Drift Away´ by Michael Bolton.
I think I might have instinctually flinched. Because I thought this song was locked away in my imaginery "DO NOT LISTEN TO THESE SONGS WHEN YOU´RE FEELING BLUE" playlist from last November.
You know what I´m talking about.
Songs that brings memories we *don´t want to be reminded of.
But I listened.
And by the end of the first verse, I was already back in my 20 year old body, crying in my small room in Barcelona.
Back when I was heartbroken, it was a miracle if I could go a day without thinking about Dylan. But walking past his floor where I used to get off to go to his room, rocked my world every time. It hurt because it reminded me of how close we were to each other, but also how far I really was from him.
"DAY AFTER DAY I´M MORE CONFUSED
I LOOK FOR THE LIGHT THROUGH THE POURING RAIN
YOU KNOW THAT´S A GAME THAT I HATE TO LOOSE
I´M FEELING THE STRAIN, AIN´T IT A SHAME?"
This was the song I´d listen to in the bed, when I´d cry over stupid things like the floor in the building he lived by. This was the song I´d listen to in bed, when I´d cry over my depression and anxiety. This was the song I´d listen to in bed, when I´d cry over the loss of "Mimmi," my grandmother.
"BEGINNING TO THINK I´M WASTING TIME
I DON´T UNDERSTAND THE THINGS I DO
THE WORLD OUTSIDE LOOKS SO UNKIND
I´M CALLING ON YOU TO CARRY ME THROUGH"
Because this song was me. It was as good as my own journal. And even though relating to this song was painful, it hurt so good to feel seen.
"GIVE ME THE BEAT BOYS AND FREE MY SOUL
I WANNA GET LOST IN YOUR ROCK AND ROLL
AND DRIFT AWAY"
I instinctually flinch when it comes on, but as I listen to this song that broke my heart and put it back together so many times....
It hit me. Everything was okay. I. Was. Okay. I. Was. Always. Going. To. Be. Okay.
My eyes welled up with tears, but I hid them. I just listened and enjoyed the new feelings that came with the song.
The feeling that the storm was finally over.
Right there when I was sitting in the taxi, was all I could have ever wanted when I was in my "Taylor Swift-cry-yourself-to-sleep-cause-you-remember-it-all-too-well" phase of life. That tiny glimmer of hope that the line "I want you to know I believe in your song, rythm and rhyme and harmony, help me along making me strong" gave me, is what led me to that moment. And it all hit me at once,
My parents seperation, my 2018 best friend breakup, anxiety and depression, heartbreak and the loss of a loved one...
I MADE IT BACK TO MYSELF. EVERY TIME. ALWAYS.
Nothing and no one could ever take me away from myself.
So I cried to this song like I had done one hundred times before, but this time, it didn´t sting. It healed.
When the taxi driver finally noticed the tears rolling down my cheeks, he worriedly asked me what was wrong. I opened my mouth to explain everything I just wrote about, but all I could get out was;
"This song reminds me of someone"
*ehem ehem*
ME.
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