Some people used to pride themselves on their record collections - and I guess some hipsters still do. The current substitute for this is the art of the Spotify playlist. I have friends that spend inordinate amounts of time perfecting their running playlist or the perfect pump-up-yet-still-somewhat-mellow playlist for a Sunday afternoon. You can capture a mood in a playlist and appeal to all the nuances of the human experience. This whole playlist phenomenon got me thinking about all the songs that have shaped me and defined eras in my life, and maybe what that playlist of my life would sound like.
The first time I remember having a visceral reaction to music was when I listened to Andrea Bocelli's "Con TePartir??" (1995) for the first time. I think I was about five years old and it was like someone had reached into my chest and squished my heart. I was obsessed with the beautiful melancholy and catharsis of listening to sad music. My mom made a tape for me (yes, a tape) that just had that song on repeat. I listened to the tape every night, and cried. But don't get me started on the translated English version, "Time to Say Goodbye" because it doesn't even compare.
When I was six I was completely and utterly convinced that "Believe" by Cher (1998) was the best song in the entire universe. Literally ever. I listened to it so much that eventually my parents bought me a CD of the song over and over but with different remixes. It was as if I had died and gone to heaven. I think I spent a major portion of my childhood dancing to that song in my living room and trying to emulate Cher's brazen use of autotune.
There are some songs that you hear and you immediately get a sense of place or a feeling that can't be replaced by anything else. One song that captures the zeitgeist of my youth is "On My Own" (1986), the timeless Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald duet with sublime synth and lines like, "Now we're up to talking divorce and we weren't even married." You don't hear songwriting like that these days. I can't even count the number of times that my mom and I have belted this song in the car, simultaneously singing both McDonald's soulful baritone and Patti's nasally belt literally as loud as we could, even making sure to include her perfectly timed audible breath at the beginning of the song. This was played frequently on my favorite channel on our Sirius radio called "Soultown," hosted by the incomparable and smooth-talkin' Bobby Jay and his lady friend Wanda. I'm pretty sure that radio show single handedly got me through middle school.
When I'm feeling down, nothing lifts my spirits like Kirk Franklin's version of Bill Withers' "Lovely Day" (1977). This contemporary gospel version with his seventeen-voice choir, The Family, makes you feel good to the core. Franklin reinvented gospel music, adding humor and contemporary rhythms. The end product is a soulful celebration that can't help but turn around whatever is bumming you out.
I could go on and on about the songs that make up the soundtrack to my life. I could elaborate on the differences between the live and recorded versions of Barbra Streisand's "Stoney End" (1971), sing every line of Al Green's "Tired of Being Alone" (1971) - riffs and all - and I still melt every time I hear Donny Hathaway's "Song For You" (1971). But in the spirit of the Spotify playlist craze, I am in the process of compiling a big beautiful list of all the music that has made me who I am. I urge you to do the same.
