When Music Happened to Me

I didn't exactly grow up on "good" music. More like top 40 and disco. Coming into my own - musically - wasn't easy. I had nothing to go off of. No wiser older siblings or free spirited parents to guide me. At 3 my favorite artist was MJ. The Way You Make Me Feel was my first favorite song; the first video I recorded and watched over and over and over. So what happened? How did I veer so far left? How did I swim up river and escape into increasingly distant tributaries?

Before I begin, it's important to point out that from 3 years old on up, I FELT music. It was a physical experience. When a song connected, it was akin to a full body high. I don't know how else to explain it. From my earliest memories, it's been an obsession. When all I had at my disposal was the radio, I'd wait on pins and needles for that one song to play that made everything else disappear for 3 minutes and 30 seconds. That one melody that made each day worth living just to experience one more time. I'd become euphoric. I needed everything and everyone to stop so I could enjoy those few moments of pure elation. It was physical, spiritual, emotional. Anything but rational.

Now, the album I see as being the keystone in my revelation and movement from popular to anything-but is Bringing Down the Horse. It's the first CD I remember buying on my own with whatever birthday or Christmas money I had. I was only 10 or 11 at the time, and no one else I knew liked them. I know for certain no one convinced me to do it. It had nothing to do with needing acceptance from other people. It was one of the first purely independent choices I remember making. I mean, they were on the radio, but everyone else I knew was more interested in whatever Kube 93 (Seattle's token rap/hip hop station) was playing.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I was deeply intrigued by rap and hip hop both, but having parents who were religiously conservative, I wasn't exactly allowed to listen to any of it, let alone buy it, thus limiting any possible venturings into the genre. So the Wallflowers were my first dip into untested waters. And I must say, it went quite well.

From there I moved on to The Goo Goo Dolls, then Cake. Cake was my first concert. Well, the first one I count anyway. The first one I had tickets to. I was 14. Awkward. Unsure about life. And not really finding any satisfaction in the top 40. I still spent a lot of time listening to the radio. Every evening from 3:45 to 10:30 was spent in my room with the radio blaring. But it just became less and less "spiritual," if you will. Few things on the radio felt like what I was finding elsewhere.

So with my musical passion craving new avenues, at 15 I found myself trying out "fringe" musicians sneakily (alt rock mostly). I had no idea at the time what Napster was, but an uncle of mine did. So I'd put together a list of songs I wanted to try out, (think Foo Fighters and Ash) and he'd burn a CD for me. None of my friends knew. I was too unsure of myself to risk being labeled "uncool." And in my school, the only people who were "cool" were people who had all the words to the latest single memorized.

From a secret love of alt rock, I eventually moved into what I discovered was labeled "Indie Music." It took me a long time to find a term that fit my evolving tastes. The enlightenment fell into my lap unexpectedly. I'd turned the TV on to some shitty version of MTV called FUSE. They were playing music videos (something the real MTV stopped doing somewhere in the late 90's when it discovered reality TV), and without meaning to, I'd somehow stumbled upon a collection of videos that magically all fit my taste perfectly. I sat, enthralled, memorizing each band name as it came up in the bottom corner. The Strokes, Campfire Girls, Queens of the Stone Age, The White Stripes, etc., etc.

To my consternation, the collection suddenly ended. But thankfully, there, on the screen, was the title for the group of videos they'd been showing. "INDIE." I stared. I connected. And without knowing the implications, right then and there, I labeled myself an Indie Girl. From that moment on, a voracious search for more of what I liked ensued.

The next year a good friend burned a copy of The Photo Album by Death Cab for Cutie for me.

My life as it is now, unbeknownst to me, took it's first huge shift onto it's current path one year later when a good friend burned a copy of Death Cab for Cutie's The Photo Album for me. I took that album to England and listened to it one night in a hotel room in Leeds. After that first listen, I listened to it every morning and every night I was in England. And then every day thereafter. It changed how I felt about the world. Later that year Transatlanticism came out. The same friend played it in my car. I rather rudely asked if I could borrow his brand new CD to burn a copy (because I didn't know at the time where to buy it. Tt wasn't at the corporate music stores yet). He reluctantly agreed, and I had one of the most beautiful afternoons and evenings of my life.

Somehow finding Death Cab is what finally convinced me to let go of the radio. I stopped caring about anything mainstream. I immersed myself in an entirely new culture. Indie became my religion. Death Cab, my bible. The fans were my people. I joined the message boards and found a group of outsiders just like myself. People who got it. Who understood the music. Who felt a physical connection to it. I hadn't known anyone else like that before. And I hadn't listened to anything that described my life so fully before. It fit like a soundtrack.

As each of the bands I loved became mainstream, I moved on to more and more obscure artists. And these days, the music I love most is weird and unlike anything that can be heard on a radio station. I'm an "Indie Elite." A snob. I despise hipsters and the vapidity that has taken over my generation. I grope for music that still tries for meaning both in melody and lyric.

And yet, I find that euphoric connection to albums, artists and songs less and less as time goes by. The things I feel love for are few and far between. I don't get excited like I used to. And it's made me feel a little empty. I don't spend hours lying in bed or on the floor or between headphones listening to the one or two bands of the moment that make me feel alive and so excited I can barely breathe. I haven't decided if this is due to a lack of time, a lack of depression or a lack of being alone. But whatever it is, I miss those full body highs. I miss music happening to me the way it used to. Who am I if I'm not obsessing over the new and the next meaningful musical experience of my life? I sure as hell don't know. Because from 3 to 20, it's all I had.