You’ve Got the Music in You
As a rule music means a lot to me, and throughout the pandemic I realised exactly how important music can be and why I needed it so much.
There are some people who can listen to music while they work, while they read and while they cook. It can be a part of the background noise in their day to day lives. Music isn’t that for me. Music allows me a special kind of freedom, it unlocks a deep corner of my imagination and gives me physical symptoms for just how much I love it - I’m talking goosebumps, shivers and smiling ear to ear. The kind of things that if you did them on a public bus people would move very far away. A lot further than two metres I’m telling you. (Not that I know from experience or anything.)
It was always like that for me, even before the pandemic but during the national crisis and lockdown it has to be said that music was my biggest saviour and most favoured distraction. A good song or two…. or ten will lift your spirits and drown out your ‘inner saboteur’ even if just for a short while.
One of the small joys that I found during lockdown was the time. Time to reconnect with books, movies and songs that I loved long ago but which got lost in my very extensive ‘liked songs’ playlist on Spotify. I also reconnected with bands that I loved from long ago but lost touch with. It was almost like I was reconnecting with myself.
Not long before the pandemic started I had begun feeling burnt out, from life and work - I felt like I was beginning to lose sight of who I was and I found the smallest amount of pride in getting through each days When the pandemic began I was incredibly overwhelmed by just how scared I was but as the weeks of lockdown went by and turned into months I realised that I could use this time to fall in love with the small things in life, including something as simple as listening to the songs I love, simply because I could.
Over the summer my favourite pastime was sitting in my garden with my songs on shuffle with my feet up sipping a drink or two (or three or four or five) watching the sun go down. That and partaking in so many quizzes that watching The Chase occasionally makes me have flashbacks. I always feel so lucky that we get to have the whole history of music at our fingertips and can even play a song on repeat without moving at all - I mean I say lucky, but really I could have done with moving a little bit more during lockdown. I totally didn’t eat my body weight in Pringles most days. I didn’t.
…. I swear.
Music was everything to me during this pandemic.
Until it wasn’t.
Music has always been a lifeline for me, but at one point during the pandemic in the gap between reopening places and the Christmas lockdown I didn’t feel like I deserved music. I lost my mum, and suddenly it was like I was back at the same point I was at before the first lockdown had even begun. However this time I felt lost and broken. Music brought me joy and magic and I didn’t feel like I deserved it. It felt wrong to smile to laugh, wrong to smile and wrong to do the things I did before with ease.
The first time I listened to music properly I listened to ‘Supermarket Flowers’ by Ed Sheeran, the song we had chosen for mum’s funeral and I cried and cried and cried some more. I sobbed and screamed and cursed the world.
And then I began to heal. Music became an escape, like it always had been for me. I absorbed as much music as I could and let the melodies drift me away into a place where my heart and mind felt lighter.
We all deserve the feelings that magic can bring us. To deal with hurt, to celebrate, to smile, to cry or to shout (and if you say you don’t shout along to Livin’ on a Prayer y’all are lying to yourselves.)
I listen to music when I’m happy about something (Hey Look Ma I Made It on the day of my graduation). I listen to music when I clean (I Want to Break Free). I listen to music when I’m sad (Behind these Hazel Eyes). I listen to music when I want to imagine myself as the lead singer of my own band (please say I’m not the only one) or the lead in a musical. I listen to music when I’m up, down, angry, inspired, waiting for a food delivery, feeling numb, showering, dancing and in just about every other scenario you can imagine.
I miss live music and being in a room with people who feel the same way, adrenaline running through us as the room vibrates with sound and a shared love for the messages and art that comes from the musicians on stage. I know we’ll get there soon, but for now I’m happy listening to a favourite or two or ten, letting it heal me and letting myself enjoy it!
My Top Songs During the Pandemic:
You Get What You Give - New Radicals
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi - Radiohead
Killer Queen - Queen
Wherever You Will Go - The Calling
Sissy That Walk - RuPaul
My Top Albums During the Pandemic:
Fine Line - Harry Styles
Scouting for Girls - Scouting for Girls
Pray for the Wicked - Panic! At the Disco
American Beauty/American Psycho - Fall Out Boy
CALM - 5 Seconds of Summer
Let us know your top songs and favourite albums from the past year, what they mean to you and whether they’re an old faithful or a new piece of magic in your life!
Written by Hannah Stait
Hannah is a writer from South Wales. She has her Bachelors in English Literature and Creative Writing from Cardiff University. She is an advocate for mental health and loves music, theatre and performs in shows with her local theatre group. Find her work @ clippings.me/hannahisfragile And her socials @hannahisfragile (twitter and Instagram)