Ever since I received my first iPod Nano in 2005, I’ve stared dramatically out of car and train windows while I let music hit my ears for years. It was a much simpler time then. Being nine years old, I’d imagine myself experiencing this long, dramatic music video with the boy I had a crush on in my class. The music felt so real to me then. I’d have a scene for each lyric. Music inspired the creativity and storytelling in my mind. I could listen to the saddest of songs and apply them to imaginary scenarios. This carried on throughout high school.
Now in college, there is so much more happening. College has truly been a roller-coaster of emotions. It feels like there are so many songs that apply to my life. One day Justin Bieber’s "Sorry” will make me sob in my car, then the next I’m dancing to Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Run Away with Me.”
Most of the time, there are no words to describe how I am feeling, so I turn to music. It’s hard for me, as a person who loves to write, to feel speechless. The frustration about not being able to put words to my feelings is indescribable. See? I literally cannot describe the frustration.
Recently, “Nana” by the 1975 sums up a lot of my feelings. It’s difficult to describe the hole that exists in my life without my grandma, so I let Matt Healy do the work for me. I guess that’s what music is for me. It puts words together for me. Music can touch at the hard, nasty parts of life. Sufjan Steven’s has had that effect on me lately. His album Carrie and Lowell touches on themes of death and toxic relationships. It’s one of those albums that you play on vinyl during a rainy day and shut your eyes and listen to. That’s what music is to me. It’s an escape for a couple of minutes when I am thinking of everything and nothing all at the same time.
