February 12, 2023 by Amy
The Power of Music
Zoe and I had a great conversation about music in the car the other day. We were listening to a playlist I had put together for all-school assemblies, which is harder than it sounds because you have to find music that appeals to all ages of kids from four to eighteen. It’s a great playlist, though, and it’s Zoe’s default go-to when I make her choose (if she doesn’t feel like playing Taylor Swift, Tom Petty, or Joy Oladokun).
The song Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap began playing and I was instantly transported back to an all-women photography retreat I went to years ago. That retreat was the first time I put myself in a position of flying somewhere I had never been to hang out with a bunch of people I had never met over a single shared passion. It was such an insanely incredible experience that I almost cry just thinking about it to this day. On the last night of the retreat, the organizers put together a slideshow of images they (and we) had made over the course of the week, and the backing track was Sweet Disposition. We all watched with tears rolling down our cheeks and ever since, that song is associated with that time and place and, perhaps more importantly, that feeling.
I told Zoe this story and she, a talented musician in her own right, told me that music is so powerful that it’s sometimes the only thing that can break through the fog of a person with late-stage Alzheimer’s. She said studies have been done showing that people who have forgotten nearly everything else about themselves and their lives will respond to music from their youth. I reminded her that we played Grammy’s favorites on repeat near the end, as that was one of the only things that would calm her down if she was agitated. My Girl and I’ve Got Sunshine by The Temptations instantly relaxed her and even, if we were lucky, coaxed a smile.
Ever since, I’ve been thinking about what songs are so firmly embedded in my psyche that, if I lose everything else, they would make me feel happy, whole, and safe. Anything by Petty, of course, since I know his entire catalog inside and out and he’s provided a soundtrack to nearly my entire adult life (demo tracks from Playback and B-sides preferred, thank you). What else?
Celebration by Kool & The Gang means nothing but a St. Louis Cardinals World Series Championship to anyone within 500 miles of The Lou in 1982 (which is probably why it’s despised by our Cincinnati cousins). Glenn Frey’s The Heat is On was remixed by a local station in 1985 (wherein we all sang “The Cards are really red hot” in between the regular lyrics because that’s not obnoxious at all), and even though we didn’t win a World Series that year, the song is indelibly attached to the team. Years later the city developed an infatuation with 1982’s Gloria by Laura Branigan thanks to our beloved Blues, taking a song from the 80s back to regular rotation here, including one station that played it for 24 hours straight whenever we won a playoff game. And we didn’t mind one bit.
We had a jukebox in the cafeteria of my middle school and some asshole got to lunch early, fed a hundred quarters into the thing, and subjected us all to St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion) by John Parr each and every day in seventh grade. It will forever be associated with shitty, mass-produced 80s school pizza that you first held up by one corner to let the orange grease drip off before stacking shitty thin napkins on top to soak up the rest. There’s a little PTSD mixed in there, as lunch time in a new middle school where you knew no one is scary AF.
Duran Duran’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger and Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA evoke much happier feelings. I had both on vinyl and wore them out on repeat. Downbound Train is still one of my Springsteen faves. Damn. What a story.
Daddy blasted Mama by Genesis the day he picked me up from school my freshman year to celebrate when I told him that I had made the dance squad. It was one of our favorites, along with Abacab and In the Air Tonight and, ironically, I Can’t Dance. Turn Me Loose by Loverboy was his “go fast” song, so now it’s mine. You bet your ass we played In the Air Tonight and Turn Me Loose at his funeral, and it was perfect. (In keeping with Genesis/Phil Collins, Sussudio is sure to make me cringe as that’s what my bestie and I chose to do our aerobics routine to in middle school gym class, an experience that also evokes PTSD.)
Gustov Holst’s Jupiter is high school football games, when our insanely talented band played it on the field at halftime, after our dance routine. It brought me to tears with its beauty, and it took me months to work up the nerve to ask a band kid what it was. I still have Holst’s The Planets on CD because of that.
Also in frequent rotation in high school: Synchronicity by The Police and the Reach the Beach album by The Fixx. One Thing Leads To Another blasting out of the tape deck and shitty speakers of my 1969 Camaro. I got sucked into The Cure by a boyfriend, and I’m so grateful Robert Smith stuck around after the boyfriend left. Pictures of You…swoon.
Nirvana’s Nevermind = Sig Nu After Hours, every Wednesday night at Rolla. And that’s all I really have to say about that.
Journey’s Greatest Hits means M, and everything about that first night when all we did was drive around and listen to music we both loved. Those first days when everything was new and nervous and my stomach filled with butterflies every time he kissed me. (Reader, it still happens.) Our song has always been Faithfully, chosen because of that first kiss and even before we knew that we’d end up spending so much time apart—when I transferred out of Rolla, when he moved to Arkansas and Oklahoma to work in the oil fields, after we got married and he traveled extensively for work. The song title is engraved on the inside of our wedding bands, a surprise to each other revealed on our wedding night.
Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine was on repeat when I brought my baby sister to Mizzou with me for a few days. We had a conversation on the way after she started singing “Turn out the light” to “Terrible Lie,” despite knowing that the name of the song is “Terrible Lie.” I almost drove the car off the road I was laughing so hard.
Anything by Alanis Morissette reminds me of Duncan, Oklahoma, where I had gone to visit my boyfriend-soon-to-be-fiancee before I graduated from Mizzou. Jagged Little Pill was burning up the charts and Ironic was played every third or fourth song. Same goes for Falco’s Rock Me Amadeus junior year of high school, when my family took a road trip to Colorado (mostly so I could visit the Air Force Academy and decide there was no way in hell I was going there) and it was on repeat. Lady Gaga’s Poker Face will always be the California trip M and I took in our 30s. Please note these are all before the days of Apple Music, before we could curate our playlists and were at the mercy of unimaginative DJs across the nation. I still love Rock Me Amadeus though.
Big Energy by Latto is Zoe’s first season of varsity lacrosse, at the end of which they won the state championship. What a season.
Riptide by Vance Joy takes me straight to Todos Santos, Mexico, and the Amanda Turner writing retreat (with teepees!) I went on last year. The first night we gathered around a bonfire to get to know each other. I had deposited my belongings and grabbed a drink from the bar before winding through the teepees across the sand to get to the bonfire. Amanda’s husband, Mike, had brought a bluetooth speaker and was our de facto DJ the entire trip. That night, as I approached the fire, Riptide washed over me and it was perfect to set the mood. Again, magic in a song and a place and a feeling.
What’s your playlist? What songs bring back the best memories, or the strongest memories? What, in the first few notes, instantly transports you to another time and place, another version of you?
Editor’s Note: the header image has nothing to do with this post. It’s just a shot I grabbed on the way to work one morning this past week and I liked it. Anything that contrasts nature with man-made shit is my bag.
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