I’m a sucker for things other people like. I never claimed to be a trendsetter; in fact, I love to follow the crowd because it gives me something to talk about with someone else. This helpful and sheep-like attitude has expanded many things about me: my clothing taste, restaurants I try, and most importantly, in my music taste.
When someone goes out of their way to show me music they like, all my criticisms go out the window; if it’s special to them, I’ll enjoy it, I’ll listen to it, I’ll love it.
However, there’s one major setback in this constant stream of other people’s music; what happens to the song once the person leaves my life?
This only became an issue when I started dating people with great music taste. They’d take control of the radio, and soon their playlists were my own. My high school boyfriend (very British, very sweet) showed me The 1975; Chocolate and Girls played on repeat as we danced in his parents basement. So when I saw The 1975 for the first time this year, not having spoken to him in half a decade, how could I feel anything but nostalgic for shitty speakers and a freckled face? I read through my high school yearbooks, shedding some tears and rambling to my best friends about “the good old days,” and the feeling passed. Yet he still manages to sneak into my head in between mumbled verses and new releases.
After high school came the next music lover, showing me some of my current favourites. We drove around his small town listening to John Mayer’s St. Patrick’s Day, road-tripped to Montreal to watch Death Cab for Cutie, and even met Hey Rosetta! together. All we’d do was listen to music.
So when we broke up, what did I do?
Listened to music, duh.
Call me a sadist, but reliving the same memories on my own was incredibly healing. I saw Hey Rosetta! with other people as many times as I could before they broke up, and now share Tim Baker (lead singer turned solo artist) with my sweet and amazing friend. Though Bandages still takes me back to guitar playing in yet another parent’s basement, it also is a lyrically driven band-aid (haha) over a once open wound.
Same goes for my good friend John Mayer. Your Body is a Wonderland be damned, that man has my heart and soul. I would show everyone I knew Slow Dancing in a Burning Room in an attempt to spread my broken heart to the masses, like an asshole. But hey, it worked! Now I can listen to it without spiraling into some weepy wreck of a lady, and other people have told me the song has become special because I showed it to them. Shared pain is less painful; it’s like a bitter-sweet cherry on top of a big ol’ mess of ice cream, and that’s how I like it.
Now, is all my music dictated by my ex-boyfriends? No, thank goodness. I learned about Mumford and Sons from some dudes who worked at a youth center my mom managed, and now I have their lyrics tattooed on my body (wish I had known they’d eventually make Delta, but hey, no one has a perfect track (haha again) record).
My friend showed me Andy Shauf, leading to yet another musical tattoo (please keep making good music Andy, I beg of you). My dad showed me Great Big Sea, my mom Michael Bublé. These people are (mostly) still in my life and not missed, but I just needed the reader to know I’m not completely made from the people I’ve dated. Genetics play a part too.
It’s been implied by some that I only listen to music to make myself sad, that being in a perpetual state of sorrow is completely self-fulfilling because of what's on my Spotify.
It’s painful to relive the past. Listening to music that reminds you of someone who’s long gone can be difficult, and yes, it doesn’t help my deep rooted feelings of “sad”. But if I let every person who enters my life take everything they brought with them when they leave, what would I ever learn from them? I’d miss out on good memories, of better times spent not missing them. Maybe I’d be happier if I skipped all the hard bits, but maybe I’d just end up in a state of denial. Imagine having to run away from a song your entire life? God forbid it’s something as popular as Come on Eileen.
I do listen to music that makes me miss people. Sometimes I revel in these feelings and let it overwhelm me, and other times I’ll be singing Love on the Weekend at the top of my lungs. I don’t want to let the fear of being sad stop me from thinking back on the good times of the past, and making better memories in the present.
I’ll keep my sad “missing you” tunes, for now at least. Maybe eventually, if I listen long enough, they’ll turn back into what they always were; they were always just fucking songs.
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