I will say that I’m a generally happy person. I adore puppies, love my mommy and daddy, enjoy long walks on the beach, believe that you should always look at thing positively, and like to smile and laugh–the generic traits of a content person.
One belief of mine is that the type of music that a person listens to defines them in some way. Every time you make a playlist on Spotify or 8tracks, it’s like you’re creating a soundtrack to some part of who you are. I will say that I have some very ambient, reminiscent piano pieces on a playlist that I have created, and that’s the side of me that likes to relax and remember old times. I have a very large EDM playlist as well, and that’s the side of me that likes to smile and jump up and down. If you’ve read my coffee post, I use coffee as a place-marker to remember specific places that I’ve visited in my life, but in this case, I use songs as memory-holders to remember specific moments in my life. From songs I briefly danced to when I was little, to songs that I cried to when I was older, I pretty much have a song for all the big moments in my life.
I’ve grown up surrounded by music. I was that Asian child that learned piano at the same time I learned how to walk, and later, I of course picked up violin at school. I was never a very big classical music fan, so I ended up quitting private lessons and teaching myself more new-age songs on the piano. I found my niche that made me feel something in the music. I dropped violin in high school as well after years of hell in orchestra, and I found a love for singing. I joined the praise team at my church and also joined chorus as a joke my senior year last semester. I think it’s around my senior year that I truly discovered how much music mattered to me, so most of my significant songs are from that year.
My life is full of some great memories, and I want to show you some of the top songs on the soundtrack to my life (listen while reading!):
Ocean Avenue by Yellowcard – I was probably in elementary school while my sister was in middle school. She was the cool sibling that knew all the hip new songs, so of course she was my main provider of Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. Some reason, the most memorable song she showed me was this one. It made me feel old and kind of like a bad-ass. I remember blasting it on our old boom box in the living room with the CD she burned full of boy band songs. We jumped on the tables and the couches, dancing around the living room and going crazy while my grandma shouted at us to get off the furniture.
Paradise by Tiesto & Dyro – It was my first spring break trip where my friends could drive, so we jumped in a car and headed to my friend’s beach house in Destin. We were seniors in high school, lied to our parents that it was only girls (or boys in the other case) going on the trip, and made our way down to the beach. We made a long playlist of songs for the ride, but as always, only one song stuck in my head. There was this moment where we were crossing the bridge that lead to Destin, and this song came on. The windows were down, and we blasted the song while I stuck my head out the rooftop window. It was perfect with the spring break hype song, and when the beat dropped, all of us (including the driver) had our head out windows fist pumping and screaming. What can I say? We were young and alive in the moment!
Home by Phillip Phillips – After joining chorus my last semester in high school as a joke, I ended up falling in love with it. As graduation time came closer, all the seniors were asked to join the senior-class chorus that would sing at the opening of our graduation ceremony. We practiced long afternoons after school; afternoons full of stress and frustration in trying to learn the song. When it came down to the actual performance, we somehow brought it all together. Facing my senior class, I sang every single bittersweet second of the song, singing about how I’ll never be alone while I have my home. It was official. I was leaving high school to go off the college and starting a new era in my life. As we finished the last note, it hung in the air, and I teared up knowing that I was leaving some of the best years of my life.
Clarity by Zedd – This is the point when I really started falling in love with EDM. This song probably played over a million times on every car ride I ever went to, and I never failed to sing my heart out with the windows down. But even through those hundreds of car rides I took while this song was playing, I remember it through one sort of embarrassing moment. It was at a graduation party, and I was with my boyfriend of the time. He was going to school at Berkeley on the other side of the country, and I was going to be staying in state at Tech. We knew we only had a summer left. When this song came on the speakers, we were chilling in the piano room, and I started crying while singing the song. It was an emotional session of sobbing and snotting, and now that I look back on it, I laugh. At that moment, it was the end of the world. Oh high school love. So young and naive.
Solitude by Y&M – I don’t have a link to this song, but if you want to hear it, I have the song on my computer. Pretty much, my (now ex)boyfriend and I made a bucket list on things we had to achieve before we split different ways for college. Both being music lovers, we had creating a short piano piece on the list to complete our playlist of wistful, short piano songs. After some cliche stargazing on his roof and long talks about life, we went straight to the keyboard and started messing around. I will say that I’m very proud of the song we made. It has a sad and ambient tone that makes you think a lot, but to me, it’s the song that defined the last few days I had left to enjoy my summer.
Salsa Tequila by Anders Nilsen – I find this song hilarious. In the peak of the best summer of my life abroad in Barcelona, my friend discovered this song while messing around on YouTube. We were drinking wine (I’m legal in Europe!) and chilling in a room full of friends when he turned this song on. With the funky saxophone and hype drum beat, we started dancing around the room. It pretty much defined my Spanish vocabulary extent with the most generic Spanish words. It was hilarious, and defined us obnoxious Americans in a Spanish speaking country. It pretty much became the theme song to the best summer abroad.
Coffee by Yuna – I started falling in love with the real taste of coffee following the many espressos I drank in Europe. Coming back to Georgia, I couldn’t help but love the feeling of sitting back, relaxing, and sipping on a cup of strong black coffee. This defined my lazy Saturday afternoons. I had no plans of going out, wasn’t going to be doing any homework, and was going to sit on my couch with my cup of hot coffee. Her voice soothed my body, and everything was very relaxing. It’s truly the simple moments that you remember the best.
Sea of Voices by Porter Robinson – This song consumed my life last semester. When I first heard it, I was amazed by sounds that created a stir of emotions inside of me. It was a mix of happy, sad, excited, amazed, and everything else. When I listen to this song, I automatically close my eyes and let it take over. It helped me recollect life when I was drowning in the Tech workload, but here’s the moment I most remember it for:
It was my fall break trip, I had finally made the group of friends I’d always wanted, and we were cruising along mountain roads in the middle of nowhere. We lost all phone service, and for some reason, I had three Porter Robinson songs downloaded on my phone. Those three songs were played the whole time we were driving as well as sitting in the campsite. You’d think that if you were stuck in the middle of nowhere with only three songs to listen to that you’d kill yourself, but we never got sick of the songs. Sea of Voices was a different experience every time I listened to it. Even as I was flying home on my plane yesterday, I downloaded the Porter Robinson Worlds album before taking off, and when this song came on, I closed my eyes and remembered the best camping trip I’d ever been on. I remembered when we took a long nature walk to find the most beautiful waterfalls, when we filled our tents with glow-in-the-dark balloons and played this song, when it started pouring rain and our tents drowned, when the huge tree fell 2 feet away from the car I was sleeping in and almost killed us, when we got stuck in our campsite because the stream we crossed had turned into a river, when we sent our marathon running friend to swim across the river and go run until he found help, and that pure moment of bliss when we got the cars to the other side of the river, soaking wet from pushing and crying from tears of joy and relief. It may sound horrible from an outer perspective, but it was the craziest trip I’ve ever been on and probably the most exhilarating. We live for the crazy moments, and what’s better than near-death moments with your best friends in the middle of nowhere! (:
I pretty much wrote these short stories while listening to each of the songs, and it really made me get the feels. It was great being able to reminisce on my life and remember how I’ve had some of the best times ever surrounded by the best people. Even on the speakers here at Radius, I love it when I hear one of these songs or any other song that makes me think of a specific moment. You never know what throwback song you’re gonna get when you walk into work! I know that there will be so many more songs that will find their way to a place on the soundtrack to my life, and all it takes is a significant memory and a great song. Being a online marketing intern as contributed to that.
So question for you: What songs are on the soundtrack to your life?