Confession: I love shouting the lyrics to "Party in the USA" in the car with my kids
What's the soundtrack of your life?
When I was working in New York City in my early 20s, the movie The Devil Wears Prada had just come out. As Andrea “Andy” Sachs emerges from the subway in New York City, KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See” is building. It isn’t that the song is particularly catchy or profound, it’s just that it fits the moment, it sets the tone. There is the sense that this young woman is taking some mix of nervous excitement and naive optimism into her new life stage of “working woman in NYC” this matches the bright sunny day in bustling NYC, and it matches the energy of the song.
My first morning commute in NYC required me to ride the N train from 8th Street up to 57th Street. Then I would walk the long stretch across from 7th Avenue (the middle of the bustling city) to 11th Avenue (where the view started to open up into the Hudson River). I would make that long walk in winter when it was a frigid wind tunnel. I would have to schedule a few extra minutes to take breaks in doorways to ever so slightly thaw my frozen hands and face before going back into the bracing cold. Of course in summer, I would arrive at my office fully melted, a sweaty mess from the steady scorch of the sun. Most mornings, as I rose out of the subway, “Suddenly I See” would be in my head, a sort of soundtrack to my morning commute.
At the time, I thought it was just circumstance: my morning commute was reminding me of that opening scene, cue the song. But I think something else might have been at work. On a deeper level, I think I was trying to change my mood. When Andy walked out of the subway with the song playing she seemed so ready to take on the day, like she believed anything was possible. My job at the time was a real downer for a bunch of reasons. I think I was trying to get myself into the energy of Andy so that it could change how I felt in that environment. I might not be able to change the people around me, but I could shift my own energy and that was the most important change I could make.
For the last two days, my kids have asked me to play Coldplay’s “Higher Power” on our way to camp drop off. They more shout the lyrics than sing them. I think they are just so gleeful that they know the words, and they are determined to let the whole world know. I have noticed how it sets the tone for the actual drop off. They walk in bouncing with the tune still in their heads, smiles on their faces. Their energy is ebullient, expansive.
Sometimes it is nice to have a song match your mood - jazz or classical in the evening when the light is low and you are winding down - and sometimes it can be used to shift it.
I think of how classical can calm my nervous system in the middle of a hectic day, or how Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” can help shift me from quiet country energy (where I live) to higher NYC energy as my train arrives at Grand Central. Music carries us in so many ways. It marks weddings, deaths, religious gatherings, shared moments with friends or loved ones at concerts.
For the most part, people talk about how music makes them feel, less so about how it makes them think. In a world where we are pushed into our “thinking selves” so often, music connects to our emotional experience, which makes us more fully alive.
Summer is an excellent time to pick out a couple of theme songs to play with. In fact you probably already have a few. Summer tends to do that. The songs so often choose themselves.
My daughter’s recent obsession with “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus takes me directly back to an old summer tradition where about 20 friends would gather on Martha’s Vineyard when we were fresh out of college. One summer, that song was on repeat - it would signal the start of our sunset cocktail hour, and it would blast through every car ride to or from the beach. When it comes on now, I am back to my 20-something year old self, windblown and salty in the back of a car, singing at the top of my lungs. It is bliss. I can feel it now just writing this.
The thing is, small shifts are the stuff of big change. A small shift like adding a song to your morning can set the tone for your day, it can change the way you interact with people, the way you feel about challenges, the way you see opportunities. It can have ripple effects across weeks and months and more. I don’t want to oversell it, but, honestly, I don’t want to undersell it either.
What songs are on the soundtrack of your life?
Me tooo