Music With Just Girl Project

Material taken from @JustGirlProject

I love music. My dad was a band member (turned police officer) who raised me on the best of the sixties which he recorded on cassette tapes. These cassette tapes were mine to borrow and peruse and when I was ten  my grandma got me a radio so i could make tapes of my own and listen to newer songs that I hadn’t known until now. Eventually my dad got me an MP3 player and downloaded for me the best of the fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties on there. Mostly classic rock but some pop music. I remember the first modern song I downloaded on there was Sweet Escape by Gwen Scalfani. 

Why Listening to the same songs over and over helps…..by Just Girl Project

They bring back feelings we had during the period when we first  listened to them

My freshmen year of college was the year the Death of a Bachelor album by Panic! At the Disco came out. My best friend at the time (Derrick, naturally) sent me the link to the “Emperor’s New Clothes” music video impressed by makeup and aesthetics. For me it was all about the music. On the whole album it was music. When my boyfriend and I broke up it was “Impossible Years” in the shower. I partied to “Don’t Threaten Me (With a Good Time)”. And when I finally left it was “House of Memories” that played as I walked out the door. I like to have these feelings on Spotify, a click away.

Repeating songs helps us calm our senses because it gives us predictable sensations

When I was in fifth grade, my dad started driving me to the middle school. I wasn’t very popular and schoolwork gave me a lot of anxiety even though I got good grades. As summer approached my dad would play a particular song: “Hot Fun in the Summertime” by Sly and the Family Stones. It made me think of our upcoming family reunion to Cape Cod, to a summer where I could do whatever I liked. It made me think of hope. Soon that song began calming me down on the way to school because I knew what  I was going through now would not be forever. Furthermore I had my dad and I was safe.

There’s a message somewhere in that song that is speaking to us in that moment

I talk about my fight with Derrick alot. Tied to him will always be that song by Shinedown “If You Only Knew” There is a particular lyric I come back to at the end of the song every time wishing he knew how true it was. “I still believe in  you” I still believe in him. I would never get involved with him again but at the end of the day, he is a good person. He deserves to know that. 

Our favorite songs help form our identity. Re-listening can remind us of who we are.

The Beatles have always relaxed me. They might have been my first band where I knew the first and last names of every musician. My fifth grade fun fact was that I loved the Beatles. It was annoying when I realized I had to share them with everybody. The Beatles were the most played on my MP3  player and then my IPOD. There was a song for every mood. Sometimes I’d construct music videos in my head. But no matter which song was playing, the outcome was always the song same: me in the backseat of the car listening to my dad ‘s cassette tapes.