Music Memory

Do you ever listen to a song and it reminds you of a specific time or event in your life? This happens to me really often, especially when I decide to put my iPod on shuffle and listen to everything that pops up.

Last year, around the beginning of December, I decided that I needed to listen to new music. But not new in the sense that I go get new music, but new songs I already owned. I mean, I had over 10 gigs of musical material and I probably only listened to 1 or 2 on a regular basis. The way I would find new songs was that I set my entire musical library to shuffle, and every time something played that I really liked, I stuck it in a new folder that I called "Discovery".

I decided on "Discovery" because it was music that I "discovered" that I already owned and liked a lot, but never would have listened to without the help of iTunes Shuffle.

My computer crashed last January and due to laziness, I had never actually copied the Discovery playlist to my iPod. However, I did make a bunch of CDs which I had given away.

All except one.

I recently found that CD, and I had made a cover for that listed all the songs on the CD. I went through iTunes, found all the songs, and recreated my Discovery playlist.

I'm listening to it right now and it's pretty strange*. When I created Discovery last December, I would listen to it ALL. THE. TIME. But then my computer crashed in January and I lost the songs. So the playlist has a really specific time frame of memories for me: December 2009.

That time was filled with the post-Thanksgiving crunch and the rush to finals and going home for winter break. I can distinctly remember many nights of staying up late to finish papers, wandering the floors of the Cathedral looking for rooms, and waking up early to trudge to Benedum to take an exam.

I remember playing Discovery over and over and over again on my computer. Blasting it in my room when I was alone or with headphones on if my roommate was there. I remember singing along to all my new songs and working through difficult assignments while the wind blew outside and the sky turned dark.

Mostly, I remember laughing and hanging out with friends. Studying in the Cathedral or grabbing hot chocolate at a coffee shop. Making Ginger Bread houses or watching a movie in someone's room. Staying up late watching music videos and getting a last lunch in before our first long break apart.

Music Memory for me is an amazing thing. By listening to a song or a playlist, I can instantly start to remember events and memories that I had long forgotten or ignored. It allows me to become nostalgic and yet content as I play a video in my mind of all the things that I have done.

I guess listening to Discovery and writing this right now did just that: brought back a bunch of memories of things that happened almost a year ago at this point. And it's interesting to see how much has changed and what stays the same. And sometimes I wish I could go back and live everything again because it seemed so perfect and happy.

It's weird to think I'm already half-way through this semester. In exactly 4 weeks I'll be home for Thanksgiving break, sitting in my bedroom, probably watching something on my computer or just browsing the internet.

And before I know it, I won't even be in college anymore. And then what?

I don't want to think too far ahead. The end of college is almost as far away as the beginning of college was. And that's a weird thought for me.

So I guess I'll just leave it at that, and visit those worries another time.

But, I invite all of you to revisit a playlist that you associate with a particular time. What do you think now? Do you even like the music anymore? And what kind of memories and emotions do you feel now?

Until next time!

--R.

*If you would like to listen to Discovery, go here**: http://LNK.by/edsne
**Clicking on the link downloads a zip file from my Dropbox that contains all the songs in order!