musical moments: part 2

I met this guy a couple of years ago, and we became friends pretty quickly. Turns out he was super interested in learning about all the music I liked, so I spent the majority of our friendship making him playlists, sending him songs, showing him music videos, and just basically educating him on all things emo/punk rock/whatever I liked to listen to back then and whatever I had to say about it. 

"This was the music video that made me want to pierce my lip." (I didn't).

"I almost got their lyrics tattooed on my body." (also didn't, thank goodness).

"I was front row at their concert, and it was the second best day of my whole life." 

blah blah blah. annoying stuff like that. 

And he listened to all of it--all of these songs and these bands and everything I had to say about them. It was like a perfect music friendship. 

Except he really didn't like any of it. He was only pretending to like it because he liked me. lol.

We fell out of touch a while back and only just recently started hanging out again. He was quick to set some boundaries this time.

"Listen," he said. "I don't have a crush on you anymore. So I'm gonna be straight with you. I'm not gonna sit here and listen to Deftones and pretend to hear the 'art' in it. I'm just not gonna do it."

"Okay," I relented. "I get Deftones. But you liked Blink-182! I swear you did!"

"Dude, I haven't listened to Blink-182 since 2019, and my playlists are fine."

We drove in silence. 

"I liked that song Disaster," he said after a while. "That was alright."

"Omg!!! I showed you that song!!"

He is irate right now.

"Motherf*ker, I know this. You showed me every f*king song they wrote! Do you think I forgot???"

He is screaming this at me, and I can't stop laughing. 

*****

Did you that roughly 50% of people get goosebumps when they are moved by music? I'm one of them. I used to think everyone was like that too. Until I grew up and realized they weren't. Isn't that an interesting facet of being young? How your view of the world and other people is so narrow that you assume everyone is just like you until you find out they aren't. 

When I realized that not everyone reacted to music the way I did, that not everyone burst into literal tears during the LOTR soundtrack because it's just so beautiful, I felt a little crazy. I remember calling my best friend when I was 17 and just losing it after listening to Jeff Buckley's rendition of Hallelujah for hours. (it was the unofficial second theme song of the OC, and the OC was my jam.)

"What's wrong?" she asked. 

"This song. It's just so beautiful, I can't even take it," I cried. "But like why am I crying? This is ridiculous. I'm ridiculous."

So I mostly kept quiet about how crazy music made me sometimes. How it made me cry. Just from the beauty and sadness and sheer euphoria of its existence. 

Until I decided that I didn't care about seeming crazy anymore, and I would cry about music as much as I wanted. Because how could I not? How can I not lose my mind over something so triumphant and magical? Something earth-bending? And if that makes me crazy then I'll be crazy. Because at least it means I'm alive. 

Because music screams that we're alive, that we have feelings, that we're having a human experience and damn if that isn't art. 

My taste in music has changed dramatically over the years. I've long since abandoned my wrathful, loud rock music, much to my mom's satisfaction, I'm sure. I listen to chill stuff now. Like indie rock. And piano soundtracks. Because I'm just a super mellow gal and extremely sophisticated. 

But I still listen to my old music sometimes, combined with my new tastes of course,  just to relive certain moments. The songs and lyrics have stayed with me, reminding me of each juncture of my life. 

Nine Inch Nails is heavy with the weight of anger and disappointment and nihilism, so much of it that I hardly know what to do with myself.

Deftones is dark and dramatic, angsty and cool and mysterious, full of ultimatums. 

BRAND NEW is walking through the bare winter trees of Paris, of running around the lakes of Le Vesinet, wondering what to do with the conglomerate of apathy and empathy that somehow coexists simultaneously inside of me. 

Lit is raging as hard as we can because we feel like we have so much to rage about. 

Bon Iver is strange, wistful yet happy summers in Utah. 

Wonderwall tastes nostalgic. But nostalgic for what? I don't know, so many things, I guess. Because I think this song has been lurking in the background of every single corner of my life. 

Blower's daughter is the heat-soaked rooms of a Romanian hospital, holding a little boy in my arms, trying to sing to him in my pitchy, off-tune voice. 

Wait reminds me of you, and I wonder, if you were still alive, if it would remind you of me too. 

Outro is full of revelations. Things that make sense to me. Things I know I should do.

Novo Amor is the warm amber hues of a New Zealand fall, the trees glowing red during a run to Hagley Park. 

In our small little house in Waimairi Village, Prim is playing Somebody Else on repeat as she makes dinner. The smell of garlic and butter floats through the air, and I think that, in the future, whenever I encounter the smell of butter and garlic again, I will always think of Prim, always think of her playing this song while she cooks. I think I've heard it a thousand times by now. But that's okay. This song makes me feel safe. Because House 10 is a safe place to be.