Reliving Memories Through Music

On the Trans-Canada Highway, we headed west. Drifting between the state of somnolence and serenity, everything felt in its right place. Kevin Morby’s Singing Saw was on, playing at a level proper enough to hear the road beneath us. “And, oh, I’m drunk and on a star / Hangs above just where I was / Going now, mouth full of laughter / Eyes like beams / Head full of dreams,” sang Morby in Rome’s cramped pickup truck. Folk music never felt so tender on a drive like this.

I half clutched my drum sticks in the passenger seat with a smile on my face as the come down from a long night of playing music put us both at ease. It was past midnight, and the empty road ahead felt like we were driving towards the gripping unknown. City lights flitted around the corners of my eyes, with Rome to my left, a half-sleepy look on his face, one arm on the wheel. The impression of that drive conveyed a contentment that could only be explained by the intimacy of our silence.

2016 was a year of new beginnings. Dreams blossomed in my head like never before. I went back to school. I made music with inspired friends. I met my first love. The future felt infinite.

Whenever I listen to Singing Saw now, I feel a tinge of melancholy and nostalgia. I’m only left with a memory of that long drive from Langley, yet I could still feel everything that was happening at that time. I get wistful about those days as I hear Morby sing in Dylan-like intonations on “Water” (“I felt small but full of pride / I felt tall for my size / My eyes were black / And fixed on the night” ), pensive as the mournful “Destroyer” blankets me in warmth (“We weren’t two but one / Now I’ve come to wonder where she’s gone”), joyful as “Dorothy” chugs along in steady haste (“Oh let’s go hit the town / And we could fill the room up with smoke / You know I got the first round / As we tell all those stories told”).

After Rome dropped me off, I only wished for the drive to last a few more songs. I went to bed that night and put on “Black Flowers,” headphones on, eyes closed. “There goes my head,” sang Morby in lament. Ending the day with that enduring bliss felt appropriate and perhaps vital to preserving that memory. The beauty of music is that you don’t need to think too hard to remember anything. Some memories escape us, but some return to us through the spell of the music we hold in our hearts.