I recently made a playlist of my all-time favourite songs. Unsurprisingly, most of them come from my teens. One press of play and I was fourteen again, in a bedroom with one wall covered in lyrics I'd copied out by hand, a wardrobe door my friends had signed, and a cassette with Still Loving You recorded over and over on both sides.
Then another song came on, and I was somewhere else entirely: years later, stopped at a red light, reading a message from a crush that only said which radio station to turn to.
The senses keep the map
It isn't only music. The smell of warm plastic still means summer and inflatable pools to me. Pink oleanders along the road meant we were almost at our summer house. A certain mint chewing gum means first dates.
You probably have a list like this. You may have started it while reading.
Why songs from those years stay so loud
Psychologists call it the reminiscence bump: we tend to remember more from our teens and twenties than from any other time, and the music of those years seems to stay unusually vivid. It was the soundtrack to so many firsts.
Painters tried to paint sound
Renoir's Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette shows a Sunday afternoon in Montmartre: couples turning, friends talking over each other, sunlight falling through the trees in coins of light. There's no orchestra in the frame, yet you can hear the music. You can almost hear the laughter.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876. Musée d'Orsay, Paris
A listening meditation
- Choose one song that makes you nostalgic for a time in your life. Any time, any song.
- Play it if you can. Close your eyes.
- Where are you? Notice the light, the temperature, what you're wearing, who is nearby.
- Is there a smell? A taste? Something in your hands?
- Don't follow the story. Stay with the feeling, the way you'd stay with the light in a painting.
- When the song ends, keep your eyes closed for a few breaths of silence. Then write down one word.
If a song brings back more than you want today, choose a lighter one. There's no rule that says nostalgia has to hurt. (If you enjoyed this, you may like this post on how memory quietly rewrites itself, or deep listening with one piece of music.)
A little music between seasons
"(letters) On Art" brings each issue of "(meditating) On Art", with a letter and a postcard every month in between, music among the recommendations. Think of it as a playlist from a friend who also loves paintings.
Remember to take as much time as you need, and meet me at the next one.
Love, Evi