“Music makes the people come together.” At least that is what one of the 20th century’s finest poets says. Perhaps you’ve heard of her? She has a knack for saying exactly what we are all afraid to say, and occasionally she hitchhikes naked. She also firmly believes that you can meet someone, fall in love and have an entire relationship on a dance floor. She says you might be lovers if the rhythms right — and why not?
A dance floor has everything you need to create the spark that will ignite desire: the bodies packed together, the gleaming sweaty limbs, the heat that rises as the lights spin in a kaleidoscope of colors and the beat — the throbbing, sexual beat that minors your pulse as you lock eves with someone through the crowd.
Sure, you can meet people anywhere, but when you meet on a dance floor it’s a different experience. You are packed into a crowd who are unified in their rhythm, you are close enough to see the sweat on their foreheads and smell the clean scent of the barely hidden desires on their skin. And when you meet someone’s gaze and hold it with your own, the crowd melts away and all that’s left is the two of you.
And the music. It’s as if DJs themselves are the modern version of Cupid; spinning the right beats to draw people to the dance floor and maybe, just maybe, create a moment that leads to something amazing. So if you are asking yourself: “what does this have to do with relationships?” sit back and let me explain.
After our sense of smell, our sense of hearing is the sense that most often leads us to the forgotten hallways where our memories are stored. Music is a huge pail of our everyday lives and it affects everything around us. Here’s an example: can you imagine a Tom and Jerry cartoon without music? How about the shower scene in Psycho? Even the end of Cruel Intentions is different without Bittersweet Symphony. Now, think for a moment about a song that reminds you of your first love. Or your last one. Or any of the others in between. Am I right? Of course I am. I’m always light.
Sure, there’s the sound of a person’s voice — their inflections, their sighs, the way they call you “baby” — but there are also the haunting notes and spot-on lyrics of the music that embellishes our romantic lives. The songs that remind you of your first meeting, your first kiss and even your last words. These songs don’t even have to be love songs either.
I have a particularly fond memory of someone from my past on a cold night in my cold car, and Green Day’s unfortunately titled Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) was on the radio. It was our first kiss. And it was amazing.
Then there is the seminal — and I mean that in both senses of the word — album Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails. Now that reminds me of an all-night sex-athon with another person who resides in the darkened recesses of my cluttered mind.
I can’t even listen to that album without getting hard. And if that’s too much information, I’m sorry.
Then there are the songs about love. And there are thousands of them. Even though I’m not a big fan of the treacly John Mayer, his song Your Body Is A Wonderland reminds me of the perfect lips and the half-lidded eyes of someone that stole my now absent heart. And this same person will always hang suspended inside the lyrics of If You’re Not The One, smiling his crooked smile.
Of course there are also the songs that ache and burn and slice you open when you hear them. Songs like Fix You or When You’re Gone or Goodbye To You — songs that are filled with lyrics of love lost, love broken and love bleeding and forgotten. These are the songs that sneak up on you on the radio or pop up on your iPod because you forgot they were on there in the first place. You pause, frozen, trying to decide whether to switch off the song or listen to it and feel every bit of heartache wash over you again.
Which do you do?
When we communicate, words make us think a thought, and music makes us feel a feeling. But a song makes you feel a thought, no matter how good or how bad it is. You can see this in the songs that come along that remind us of someone even though the song didn’t even exist when you knew that person. Even in the songs that don’t necessarily mean anything but were popular at a certain time in your life when you were with a certain someone. Songs like Viva La Vida and American Boy are not love songs, but both of them remind me of the same person because they were in constant rotation during the time we were involved.
Whether it’s Open Arms or Lollipop, we all have songs that connect us to the people in our hearts. Not all of us can kiss Jake Ryan while If You Were Here plays in the background or hold up a boombox with In Your Eyes blasting from it, but just like fingerprints music leaves an indelible mark on who we are and who we were.
I have an experiment for you — if you think you can submerge yourself in the past, that is. Think of all the songs you can remember from the moment you stalled down your romantic path — but don’t listen to them — and gather them into a playlist.
Call this playlist My Soundtrack or the Love Chronicles or something that makes it sound equally cohesive and every once in a while click it on and see where it takes you: your first kiss, your first love, a hot and sweaty tryst, a painful breakup, your new partner — it all lives and breathes in music because music is what feelings sound like.
Like the song says, it touches everything you’re in and it never goes away. And if you can’t believe Madonna, who can you believe?
