Music

Music has always been an important part of my life. I grew up listening to eighties hair bands with my mom and oldies with my grandma. My cousin and I were also huge fans of Disney Mania and Radio Disney, much to our grandma’s dismay, and we would always ask her to play these CDs in the car and proceed to sing all the words opposite of how they were actually sung. We thought it was hilarious.

In relation to always being into music, I was in dance for a short time at a very young age. I think I started when I was four, and pretty much everyone in my family did dance at some point. This would lead to countless backyard luau parties where us cousins would put together a hula routine, and many Christmasas where we would put on a holiday dance recital for the family. 

Aside from growing up with hair bands and lots of Disney, I also grew up with the best era of country - in my humble opinion. The 90’s and early 2000’s era was my favorite, and even some before that, but George Strait is my favorite country singer of all time. Through the years I was influenced by everyone around me, and learned to love most genres from the 20's all the way to the present, and by the end of middle school I was starting to develop some serious preteen obsessions. Taylor Swift’s country albums got me through all my junior high sadness and angst, not to mention all the music on the Media Player that my cousins loaded onto the computer that provided an array of Rock, Pop and Alternative songs that got me into Green Day, American Rejects, and the like.

I remember the days of dinosaur MP3 players and my first iPod Shuffle that didn’t even have a display screen on it. Back in my day I could only carry about 200 songs with me, and I had to just memorize the song order so I knew where to skip to when I wanted to hear a particular tune.

In middle school, I did voice lessons for about two minutes and then realized that even though I loved singing alone just for fun, I was mortified at the idea of singing for my voice coach, not to mention a whole auditorium of people. So on my way to a voice lesson with my grandma, I asked her, “Would it be bad if I wanted to play piano instead?” and that was when I fell in love with piano instead. The voice coach just happened to be a piano teacher too, and so the next year and half or so were dedicated to music theory and learning my favorite pop songs.

I used to know how to play “Love Song” by Sara Bareilles, and I was learning songs by The Fray, Alicia Keys, Bette Midler and Sarah McLachlan. Unfortunately my official piano career was cut short when my teacher passed away. And I never found a good teacher in my small town after that, so I tried to continue teaching myself in an unofficial capacity over the years and now I’m feeling some serious phantom limb without my old piano and I really want to get back into it.  

In high school, I listened to the radio a lot more, and I even went through a phase of time where I slept with the radio on so I could catch my favorite songs whenever they came on. Talk about FOMO. I was into Bruno Mars and Ke$ha, and my friend and I would fill notebooks full of song lyrics and swap recommendations at school each day. I even got my mom to listen to those Now That’s What I Call Music albums back in the day, back when I wanted to collect them all. I remember some Now That’s What I Call Club Remixes CD that Mom would play in the car on the way to school in the mornings. I can’t get those club mixes of Pitbull and Sean Kingston out of my head even to this day. 

At the end of high school when Caleb and I became closer friends, the first CD that he lent me was Avenged Sevenfold: Nightmare. It was my intro into more alternative rock options, and I really did enjoy it. From there, he introduced me to Mumford and Sons, The Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men, The Civil Wars, and Imagine Dragons. I burned copies of each CD and listened to them on rotation on the way to school when I finally got my license and started driving. 

When Caleb and I got together, and back when you could still share your iTunes library with people, we swapped playlists and I learned about so many more genres and artists that I never knew before. I discovered Adele, Sam Smith, OneRepublic (in all their glory; I knew of them of course), and The Black Keys, and our musical tastes only grew from there. He taught me about House of Heroes, Anberlin, and Lindsey Stirling, and from there our tastes continued to grow together. Now we love Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, James Bay, and all the EDM and all the lofi. Honestly I think we just love that we both love music so much. 

When I think about emotions and how they are associated with music, it conjures up a lot of memories. I remember listening to my mom sing Anne Murray as she read from handwritten song lyrics and it always made me smile. I laugh when I think about all the bellowing me and my childhood best friend did, waking up half the neighborhood and her poor grandma when we would have sleepovers at her house, including the annual “All I Want for Christmas Is You” car performance we would do at the top of our lungs when we were driving home from somewhere during the holidays. We even made up a dance to that Eyewitness theme song once from those old science videos they would show at school, and I have no idea why. But we had a blast doing it as we sang along and made up some crazy synchronized moves. 

I’ll also never forget all the times I rode with my grandpa in his old 1995 Dodge truck - that he still has to this day - and listened to old cassette tapes of Elvis gospel music, Red Sovine and Jerry Clower stand up. I’ll also never forget one of the times we were listening to George Strait and I caught him mumbling the words to “Ocean Front Property” from the corner of my eye. I think the reason I love old music so much is because it reminds me of him and my grandma, and they always say that you become passionate about things that people you care about are passionate about. I know that’s definitely true, and that’s why I have such an expensive taste in music in general because it means something different to different people but still has the power to bridge the gap between.  

There are songs that remind me of sad times, and though I can still listen to them, they always teleport me back to that moment where that particular song changed for me forever. Rascal Flatts and Randy Travis definitely come to mind. Some songs make me smile and dance, while others remind me of mine and Caleb’s early days. I remember the nights we would sit in his car and stare out of the sunroof at the stars and just play “Yellow Light” by Of Monsters and Men on repeat forever. I remember how much I loved our wedding dance, and all the songs I hand picked for the occasion with care. I remember all the nights me, Caleb and our friend would take turns adding our favorite songs to a queue and spend the whole night just talking about life and the universe and goofing around in between. 

Whether I’m driving, sitting at home at my computer, or celebrating some event, music is always there. It evokes so much emotion and memories, and I’m grateful to come from a household that appreciates and loves all music, and I’m happy that I have a like-minded person that can love it as much as I do.