‘In memory, everything seems to happen to music.’

—Tennessee Williams

 

With all due respect to Mr. Williams, sometimes I think the reverse is more true: “In music, everything seems to happen to memory.” Now I need to explain what I mean by that.

I mentioned in the first post on this journal that I haven’t kept a diary since sixth grade. That’s not entirely true. For every month for nearly four years, I’ve put together a playlist of the songs that occupied the majority of my listening time in that monthlong period — and found it to be one of the most effective “journals” I’ve ever kept. 

These playlists have become an aural snapshot of the most volatile (not necessarily meant negatively) 45 months of my life; they’ve captured the essence of myriad emotions and events and serve as feather dusters for the more cobwebby areas of my memory. Places, people and thoughts are tied to each note of every song and they come immediately flooding back as the first few tones infiltrate my ears. Really, it’s not just the song I place in each month’s playlist, it’s a memory, too — all conveniently in a dated folder that is able to tell me approximately when I had that certain breakdown or when I was feeling like I could conquer the world or when I was just stoically living life.

My monthly playlists average around 12 tracks; some have more than 20, some have merely seven or eight. The number of songs is also a good indicator of what kind of month it was: Generally, the fewer there are, the busier I was at the time. There have to be a few rules, of course, to make sure that a single band or album doesn’t dominate any single month. I limit myself to two songs by a one artist or band in a single month (this number used to be one, but that was entirely too limiting). Songs can’t be used in two playlists less than a year apart. Most importantly, songs have to have some value to me, lyrically, musically or both. Well, that goes without saying.

Through the course of these nearly four years, it’s been especially interesting to watch my listening habits evolve. There are tracks from three years ago I couldn’t bring myself to listen to today, because they’re either too representative of a bad time or because I’ve concluded, after considerable thought, they’re terrible songs after all. But they still remain in the playlists. How can I object to what I listened to three years ago? It was a different era.

I’m writing this post based on a personal music-listening revolution I’ve noticed through examination of my thus-far-incomplete July 2008 playlist (it won’t be finished until August 1). Every so often, I’ll have a stand-out month of music listening where a majority of tracks are from artists who’ve never made my playlists before. This has been one of those months. Of the 13 artists currently represented by 18 songs in “2008 July” (year first so they’re alphabetized by year, not by month — hey, I’m a thinker), eight are new to my music library. Sure, there are old standbys like Coldplay (Viva La Vida is still a juggernaut, more than a month later) and Death Cab (Narrow Stairs is stuffed to the brim with single-worthy songs), but up until a few weeks ago, I’d never heard of Fleet Foxes (please, listen to their self-titled debut), Youth Group (how great of an album name is The Night Is Ours?), Mansions (this stuff is good — really good) or Why? (“The Hollows” is a strange, epic journey that’s at the same time raunchy, crunchy and genuinely delicious). 

It’s been a fantastic music-listening summer for me. I have so many phenomenal albums and singles that I don’t really have the time they deserve, and I’m the type of person that listens a good album to exhaustion, to the point where I know most or all of the words by heart, along with the melodies, harmonies and instrumentation. There are few things in this world I love more than music, and there are few greater thrills for me than discovering a gold mine of the good stuff.

So, no, this truly wasn’t my first foray into journal-keeping for almost a decade. I instead chose to record my memories in an audible form, a form that began as a separate entity, by a different author, but later became ingrained in my life and thoughts to the point where I felt some ownership over it. These playlists, this music journal, didn’t start out as a monthly record of my life; it was simply a way to collect and remember my favorite songs. Five hundred-plus tracks and 45 months later, I’m glad to have an unorthodox, eerily effective journal — one that sounds as great as it reads.