The Songs I Lived For

“with this ring I thee wed
with all my worldly goods
I thee endow”

How can I hear my mind’s music? Since childhood, the question intrigues me to the edge of madness. How can I hear music, see images, taste sensations, all without my physical senses? How can I experience a song so vibrantly, secretly, while simultaneously holding a conversation with someone before me?

“to love and to cherish
according to god’s
holy ordinance”

I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole a time or two in search of the science behind our thoughts, daydreams, and dreams. The music we hear when no song is playing. The voice of our inner dialogue when our tongues are still. It’s research that leaves me keenly aware of how little we understand about our reality. We experience life through the lenses we choose to look through, and I think we tend to default to only looking through a select few lenses, leaving so many other ways of experiencing life untouched.

“you have declared your consent
may the lord fill you
both with blessings”

I don’t have the mental capacity to carry specific facts and findings and research with me daily, but I know what I feel. I know what makes me feel. I know the kind of feeling that’s like a sweet weight in the pit of your stomach, a wake-up punch to the gut that churns the heart back to life. Music, on repeat, is often my wake-up gut punch.

“from this day forward
for better for worse
until death do us part”

So I don’t browse for songs, I wait for them to steal my full attention. And when I stumble upon one that wiggles its way into my subconscious—when I randomly realize it’s been pulsing through my dreams, my background thoughts, the lyrics on my mental tongue—I embrace it as long as it wants to last. And I create to my mind’s music, swept in melodic meditation. And I walk from the kitchen to the basement to the beats behind my eyes. I move through life in my own little music video, experiencing the flavor the music imparts upon my waking reality. For days, weeks, months, until a new song rises or silence settles my thoughts.

“damn! can’t even remember my name.
you are my thing I’m my own shadow.”

Here’s a curated playlist of some songs that stole my mind for weeks, months, even years at a time:

MIND MUSIC

California Soil – London Grammar
Everytime – BROODS
Hurts Like Hell – Fleurie & Tommee Profitt
Taro – Alt-J
To Build a Home – The Cinematic Orchestra
Gimme – BANKS
Figure 8 – Ellie Goulding
Car Radio – Twenty One Pilots
Conscious – Broods
Buzzcut Season – Lorde
Ready Yet (San Holo Remix) – Sasha Sloan
Runaway – AURORA
A Moment Apart – ODESZA
Oh Woman Oh Man – London Grammar
Every Other Freckle – Alt-J
Hawaiian Mazes – BANKS
Video Games – Lana Del Rey
Trampoline – SHAED
Ode to Sleep – Twenty One Pilots
Radio – Lana Del Rey
Deadly Valentine – Charlotte Gainsbourg (Current obsession, lyrics referenced in this post)

Click here for an Apple Playlist of this collection.

Thank you for being here today.
Photo: my image