I will tell you all a story. A story with a purpose. A funny story with a purpose? I will leave this for you to decide.
Tonight, as I let the Spotify gods control my music and in some ways my emotions, and hit the omniscient shuffle button, soon Dashboard Confessional’s “Screaming Infidelities” played, and I was immediately transported to 9th grade. Music has a way of doing that. It takes you back to a time or a place. A better place? Always. An easy place? Not so much.
The summer after 9th grade for me was about 18 years ago. The world was flooded with the two N’s. Nokia and Napster. Well I put two and two together and realized this also equaled the two R’s. Real-time Romance. I know plenty of guys now screen-shot their Spotify songs and send them to females. This helps the guy articulate his feelings to his girl, and it really makes the girl feel good. I know from experience this goes both ways. I think this is great, but some would say that I am a visionary because 18 years ago when I was in 9th grade I texted my little girl that I was just crushing on to the max this song on my Nokia. I could not screenshot, but I could type and with Napster, the song was only a download or mixed cd away.
You may can tell from the title of the song, but a line in the chorus is “your hair is everywhere screaming infidelities.” You may not know the song, but you know enough already to know that if this girl had studied her vocabulary or really even listened to any of the song at all, that something must be wrong with me. Why would I send this to her? I was trying to make her feel good.
The truth is, even when I was young, I loved music. It would get down in my very core. My deepest, darkest places. Music can go there and not judge me. It doesn’t even have to have words. My music taste has evolved a lot over the years, but still, even now, when a killer John Frusciante or Dave Grohl rift hits me in the heart. It makes it jump just as much as the poetic melodies of Mumford and Sons or Third Eye Blind. Thanks, but no words needed, although sometimes they are appreciated especially with the latter two bands listed.
I guess, in 9th grade, even when I had a fairly advanced vocabulary for my age, I was so overcome by the music of the song and the way it made my heart beat that I recognized it beating in the same rhythm that the thought of her, at that time, would make it beat. Based on her response, it did not make hers pitter-patter the same way mine was. I knew this because no one has ever T9 texted faster than this 8th grade girl did as she explored the true depth (or lack thereof) of my feeble, newly introduced to testosterone, 9th grade mind.
I will forever love music. There will always be songs that can take me back to different times, and they will remind me of the different rhythms my heart has beat in over the years. People, you should use music to heal you. Let it get inside and then listen to what it tells you. Listen to yourself.
But if you ever get ready to share these feelings with someone else, please read the lyrics first…
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