What’s On Your Soundtrack?

There has always been something about music that calms me. Or excites me. Or makes me cry. Or reminds me of a time.

Songs are the perfect connector to anything in life I think.

And I’m not musical. In any capacity. I took exactly 4 piano lessons when I was 10.
4.
And please don’t ask me to tell you what I learned. Because I was 10.

But if you want me to pull up 50 songs at any given time and tell you a story about why I love them? That I can do. All day long.

You want me to tell you what I think of when I hear Islands In The Stream by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers? My mom. And how we would clean the house on Saturday mornings together when I was a little girl and she would BELT that song out at the top of her lungs.

Wind Beneath My Wings? Dancing with my dad at my wedding. Both of us hanging onto each other for dear life to survive it. Both of us ugly crying through every single step and syllable.

I can reach back through my entire life at any given point and pull up the soundtrack from that time.

And what I find now is that I rely on those songs to not just entertain me, but to carry me through. This journey we are all on is twisty. All of us are doing the best we can with what we have. Whether that’s work, political passion, or meandering through a storm, we all have stuff.

My stuff isn’t worse than your stuff. My stuff is just mine.

But when I pop in my headphones and throw some songs in my ears, I can take a break from all that stuff for a time.

When you think of the soundtrack of your life, do you listen to lyrics? I live by lyrics. Not because I feel like I’ve lived the same experiences I’m listening to. No two people have ever lived the same story. But when Adele tells me “Next time I’ll be braver, I’ll be my own savior, When the thunder calls for me”, you can bet your ass those words become a power source for my soul, not just words that roll off my tongue when I sing along. At the top of my lungs. In my car. Surrounded by horrified onlookers passing by.

Then there’s the messages songs deliver. You know, when you hear the exact song that makes you think of the exact person? If I had a penny for every song that makes me think of someone. Oy. And isn’t that some powerful shit? Something so simple. But doesn’t it make you stop for a second and listen a little harder?

I think of people constantly when I listen to songs. Sometimes I tell them, sometimes I don’t. Maybe I should. Because maybe if I did, it would give us all just a second to pause and think about something better than all the stuff. Just for a second.

My friend Sandra always gives me the gift of the song. It’s usually when she’s in her car, and something comes on that takes her back to a time….and she’s singing it at the top of her lungs…..to me. Every single time, I giggle. Because I know two things.
1. That it’s usually a song we have either rapped (yeah, I said it RAPPED) together in a crowd at an event or something we would have.
2. She knows at that exact moment, it’s what I need to hear.

My friend Andrea gave me the gift of the song during high school. The mixed tape to end all mixed tapes. Literally. Do I still have it? Of course I do. Do I still have something I can actually LISTEN to it on? That’s another story.

Then there’s the chicks CD. A cd full of songs by ladies. Ladies who sing songs that deliver messages. Messages that say all the things when sometimes the things can’t be said. That one goes on repeat some days and doesn’t come off.

Music. It’s a place to escape to when you can’t go anywhere. The power of a song or ten if you have the time can change the course of an entire day. I know that because I spend a lot of time allowing songs to change the course of mine.

Give it a try sometime. Grab your phone and create a playlist of the songs that are your soundtrack. And then marinate in only those songs for a while. I bet your soul will thank you for it.