Over the past week, my Instagram was flooded with my friends’ Spotify Wrapped images and videos. Do you get those? 

Up until recently, I haven’t been a Spotify user, so I don’t get a “wrapped.” There certainly is something about December that makes you want to count up all of your goods and bads, successes and failures, and memories and data. And I guess there is something interesting about how many times you listened to your favorite artist, and if you are in the top 5% of their fans in terms of how much you play and re-play their songs. And how old your musical taste makes you. I mean, sort of. 

With music, I can’t understand this as anything but a sense memory, because creating a milemarker for my emotions over time is what music has always been for me. It reminds me of sleep data. A few months ago, I took an at-home sleep test, and I just got the results. And yes, I was interested to know how many minutes of REM sleep I got, or how many times I woke up during the night (I thought I woke up twice – the data said NINE times!). But when I wake up in the morning, I have a pretty immediate indicator of how good my sleep was because I either feel rested or tired. 

With music, regardless of what the tally is, I know which songs were on heavy rotation most years of my life based on what was happening in my life at that time, and how I was feeling. 

In 1996, my college roommate and I listened to “I Got Rhythm” over and over again because fake tap dancing while shouting the lyrics loudly was one of the best ways to blow off steam after class. And I think we took a perverse pleasure in aggravating our hallmates. I also got way too into “Oxford Town” by Bob Dylan because I remember her telling me I was driving her crazy with that song, and that she listened to “Everybody Hurts” by REM on repeat because of some irritatingly bad boyfriends. 

“Summer Breeze” by Type O Negative reminds me of road trips with my husband when we were first married. “Nightshift” by the Commodores was on heavy repeat for me during the pandemic. There was something very comforting about hearing “You found another home, I know you’re not alone, on the nightshift” on those many nights that I couldn’t sleep even though I was exhausted. And I can’t count how many times I listened to “Going out in Style” by the Dropkick Murphys when I made the really hard decision to close the business I was running in 2011 and kept telling myself, over and over, that I was making the right decision. 

I associate “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley with 2007, about a year after it came out. I was still very new to my fundraising job and I had somehow found myself in the offices of a family foundation that was considering my request for a million dollars. I was with my boss, one of our clients, and the Board President, and we were waiting in a small office about to go make our presentation to the family – who had a reputation for being very exacting, and not giving many $1M grants. I had been practicing and practicing what I was going to say, and my palms were sweating, and I was about to jump out of my skin. Out of nowhere, the board president pulled out his phone and started playing “Crazy.” 

“I just love this song, don’t you? I can’t stop listening to it. It’s my favorite,” he said while he grooved to the beats in his chair. He was white, and short, and balding, and about the same age as my dad. Not the target audience for this song. And watching him dance made me laugh and get out of my head until I couldn’t be worried very much anymore. 

The story ends with us winning the grant, and doing some awesome stuff with the money. The epilogue to the story is that, a few years later, the Board President lost a battle with cancer, and he couldn’t listen to his favorite song anymore. But sometimes that song still comes on the radio, and I am right back in that tiny room, laughing at him and his well timed dance party, and remembering that I don’t have to let my worries get the better of me.

This year’s music memory surely would be made of multiple plays of “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters per my daughter’s request (and sometimes randomly when I was at the gym); Soundgarden’s “Drawing Flies” which I listened to over and over at one point because it sounded like writer’s block in the most intriguing way; and “Burning Love” by Elvis because I liked to listen to it in my headphones during morning walks. Somehow it made me feel closer to people who are no longer here (I think it’s something my Dad used to like to sing, and I can see him mugging and clowning in my mind every time Elvis sings “I’m just a hunk, a hunk of burning love”).

This time last year, I was playing Hozier’s cover of “Fairytale of New York” and “A Long December” by Counting Crows, both of which seemed the right soundtrack for spending the weeks leading up to Christmas in a hospital, waiting for my Dad to end his journey on earth. 

Listening to them again as I write this, I get that chill up the spine, accompanied by goosebumps and a lump in my throat. It’s that frisson you may have read about in articles that claim these visceral effects of music are something that only about half of people experience. It’s usually a great lyric, key change, a pacing change, or soaring harmonies that cause this for me. In some songs there’s a moment where I can almost feel what the notes feel like in the singer’s throat. That makes me shiver. 

I remember a long time ago, not sure when, my Dad mentioned to me that hearing Tina Turner hit the high notes in “River Deep, Mountain High” did the same for him. “Look, I have goosebumps” he said, showing me his arm. It’s nice to know our brains, though very different, had some things in common. And maybe that’s another reason why these songs sit so deeply in my memory – because those memories have found their way into my bones, muscles, and skin, too. 

I hope wherever you are, you’re enjoying good music, feeling good chills, and anticipating some special moments ahead as the year comes to a close.