Well! It's been a couple of years, hasn't it? Long enough that reading my first post left me baffled as to whom I was referring to, and caused me to return to the helpful song to possibly recapture a little of the melancholy essence that could assist me in recalling the subject!
Today I want to talk about music and memories. Are you one of those types that can easily associate a song to a person? And when things go sour with that person (as they inevitably do), that song represents that person, thus bringing all the hurt and the heartache to the forefront, thereby forever ruining that song? I don't operate that way, but I find it curious that others do. Music is such a healing and driving force that I cannot consciously allow songs to sour as a result of a single person. If pictures can speak a thousand words, music is like a thousand pictures to me. Each song it's own vivid collection of images, emotions, and ideas, culminating in an aural masterpiece. I often get lost in these lush soundscapes, finding myself carried away to the point where I am walking down a lonely and dark road in Southeast DC (a bad, bad place) belting out to Robyn's "Handle Me", which is blaring in my headphones. It just so happens that this particular lack of inhibitions was noticed and acted upon by a pair of youths who felt that my stuff was better off being their stuff. They enforced this with a crack to my jaw. I didn't notice I had been hit until I was spitting out the remnants of the tooth and staggering back to my feet.
"Handle Me" forever will be associated with this simple act. Someone hurt me to take my things. But unlike the type of person I described earlier, this did not negatively impact my opinion of the song. On the contrary, I fell in love with the song moreover, it becoming a mini-anthem to my ability to survive and cope with a terrible situation. They could knock me down, steal my things, and make me feel small and weak, but they didn't end me. I got up, I got home, and I got my life back together. And this song is the soundtrack to my new strength. A second mugging almost happened in a similar circumstance, when I had fallen for a song and listened to it repeatedly the entire day (much the same with "Handle Me"), ended up taking the bus home from a late night at a second job, and was followed by four separate youths who again decided they wanted my stuff to be their stuff. The kindness of a stranger with a very large black SUV and quick thinking on my part most likely saved my life that night.
So I suppose what I am saying is that, while it is easy to let something spoil due to a negative connotation, associating a positive idea or emotion to instead is a great way to salvage it. Plus, good music is hard to find, no reason to make things more difficult on yourself, right?
Keep an eye out, folks, for posts about my upcoming Music Mix 2009. I'll be asking opinions and sharing songs, so check in frequently!
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1 comment:
Psychologically, people will associate things to whatever feelings that occur after certain events. For example, if you felt fear and began to associate it to that song, then you would probably hate to listen to that song because it would conjure back those memories.
People don't always run with their feet.
However, there is also the possibility that listening to that song made you think about those circumstances multiple times, and by confronting those fears in your mind, you resolve to avoid similar situations and not let the fear control you.
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