Soundtrack to my life

I know there are people out there who won’t believe me, but I am a firm believer in the concept of having a soundtrack to your life.  It’s like a Cameron Crow movie in some ways- because music always seems to be so central in his movies.  What really convinced me of this, well years ago, was that I have some very visceral memories that can be dredged up with a few bars of a certain song.  The memories that can simply bring you to tears when you least expect it or the ones that keep you laughing.

I had this weird experience on the plane ride to Arkansas last Friday.  I had put together a couple of new play lists for my iPod and simply added some new music to others.  I have this one I called “Birthday” because I wanted that to be my music on my most recent birthday.  It was nothing to really write home about- just some songs I liked.  But there were a couple I added last Thursday that sent me home to my teen years and some to the time after my grandma died, and finally to London where I lived for six weeks the summer after she died.  All at once, listening to that portion of the list I was nearly brought to tears, pulled from the brink of the biggest sadness I had known, and reborn.  All of this happened through about four songs, on an airplane, without anyone knowing but me.  

The one that really got me, unexpectedly, was the song “Out of Habit” by Ani DiFranco.  That song just zoomed me right back to my dorm room at The University of London in the summer of 1997.  The summer I became the person I felt I had lost for a while there.  I used that summer to become the me I feel I am today.  The first line of that song was what did it….one little line could take me back nine years!  Who would have thought?

Butter melts out of habit/you know the toast isn’t even warm

There I was, sitting on my window sill; looking down at the London side street and watching some other American students create a lot of noise.  My head phones on, this song on, that line speaking to me.  I walked around that summer, a lot of times by myself and stopping in parks to write in my journal.  I remember writing it as if I was writing to my grandma.  I bought that CD at Tower Records in Piccadilly Circus, right after I witnessed the biggest Gay Pride parade ever.  I had discovered Ani Difranco mostly thanks to Gina and Anne.  I did have one of her CDs with me, but this one was all acoustic and mainly earlier songs.  I spent the rest of the summer listening to that disc, including my plane ride home.

Friendships have the same musical markers for me.  I have groups or artists that are so strongly associated with people.  The Cure, for me, will forever be a reminder of Amber.  There is not one time I have heard Robert Smith’s voice and not been instantly transported to my freshman year of college and her complete obsession with him.  Phish and Disney songs are my lovely reminders of Anne.  Mainly the Disney songs, though.  I was the best singer in the world on evenings (middle of the nights, really) when Anne and I would put on our boots and heavy coats in order to walk to few minutes to the 7-11 from our dorm.  99% of the time I would sing a song from a Disney cartoon, sometimes of Anne’s choosing, but mostly the ones I thought would make her laugh the hardest.  Hey, if she had to wake me up, she was going to endure the singing and tears from laughing so hard!  So often the result would be falling over into a snow bank half way there to laugh and cry from laughing.  

Gina will forever be Nine Inch Nails, among so many others.  She’s harder to pin down though.  I think it’s mainly because there are so many memories in my childhood and adulthood with Gina that certain songs that were playing at the time have been captured in my memory.  I can’t hear a Richard Marx song without thinking about being at the Taylor’s house and being bored to tears with “The Terminator” to the point that we thought long and hard about the fact that a nick name for Richard would (of course) be Dick.  Therefore (wait for it!) the unfortunate name of Dick Marx came into our heads.  There was at least a year of my life I will not get back because we spent so much time laughing about that one.  

There are the memories that didn’t have music, but you insert it yourself.  The winter my grandma died I listened to a lot of Toad the Wet Sprocket.  It was one of the groups she always liked after I introduced them to her.  I can not, for the life of me, hear the song “I Will Not Take These Things for Granted” without feeling a very heavy sadness.  And yet, I do still listen to that disc, though not so much anymore.  I listened to a ton of Dar Williams during the time when Rob the Bastard broke up with me and he and Amber started dating.  Man, I wanted to be optimistic about that one, but it never really happened.  I came out the other end knowing artists like Ben Harper, Jeff Buckley, and Patti Griffin.  Mainly, I came out the other end of a break up, a death, another break up, a betrayal, and a long trip knowing myself.  All the while, music was helping me along and counting the moments of my life.  

And now what am I listening to?  What will be my soundtrack now and during this time?  I don’t know; I guess I’ve been revisiting the past.  On my play list right at this moment are some older songs:
What if No One’s Watching by Ani Difranco
Let Him Fly by Patti Griffin
Friday I’m in Love and Just Like Heaven by The Cure
Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel
Under the Table and Dreaming by Dave Matthews

And some newer discoveries:
Chicago by Sufjan Stevens
Nothing I Do by Jamie Cullum
Either Way it Goes by Blue Merle
Better Together by Jack Johnson
Feel Good Inc by Gorillaz

Who knows, ten years from now I could hear a Sufjan Stevens song and it would remind me of this very moment.  Or at the least, the time I spent trying to pick a bridesmaid dress for my wedding.  You never know…