Since I can remember, I’ve always loved music. I grew up listening to my dad’s favorite songs on the car ride to school, or my mom humming to tunes while she was cooking dinner. I even gave my swing at choir and playing in the orchestra in middle school. This didn’t last long as my love for listening to the music, wasn’t well reciprocated in my vocals or string skills.
Now like I said, musically, I wasn’t very talented. There is one skill that not many people can truly grasp: listening. Millions of people all over the world hear music, but listening to it throughly takes it to another level. Internalizing these lyrics and and melodies can bring out the most extravagant feelings.
The first song that really stuck with me was “Ribs“ by Lorde. I remember listening to this song throughout my childhood when galaxy print and Justice clothing was trending. Back then, I just remembered I liked Lorde because of her popularly and pretty voice. However, the more I grew up, I found the song again in a different way. I truly listened to the lyrics and realized how accurately it fits in with growing up and senior year. Sometimes when I listen to the song, it helps me to feel better about how scared I am about the drastic change in my life, and the mourning of my childhood.
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Now you may be wondering why such an upbeat song like this pulls on my heart strings so much. Well, this is a song that I will always relate to dance team. I remember my sophomore year, which was one of my hardest years mentally on the team, that this song would play nearly every day. I remember the seniors loving this song and wondering how I would ever be in their position. Now I’m the senior singing my favorite songs on the bus, and I’ll often throw on FourFiveSeconds in my AirPods for some nostalgia.
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I remember discovering country music at a very young age. My dad would pick me up from Kidstop through my elementary years and play his favorite tunes through the radio. I remember once I got older, I had finally gotten my license I was creating a playlist of song to play in the car. I went to the country music genre and didn’t recognize any of the titles, but as I hit play I seemed to know the words to every song. One of these songs that specifically stuck out to me was “Greatest Love Story.” I noticed a storyline of two lovers throughout the song. Now, I’m fortunate enough to have an amazing man in my life, and I attribute that to the messages my dad’s music taught me.
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At the beginning of my junior year, I felt like I was falling apart. However, there was one person that seemed to hold me together. My friend Vivian is someone more like a sister. Not only was she there for me every day, but she always offered me advice and peace of mind. This is one of Vivian’s favorite songs, and I remember her always playing it on car rides. The day Vivian left for collage, I found myself at dance practice feeling sad during our team stretch. Suddenly, the first few beats of this song started, and I could feel tears silently start to roll down my face.
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One again, as silly as it sounds, this upbeat song is truly a core nostalgic memory for me. I’ve been dancing my whole life and one thing that stayed consistent from when I was probably five years old, to today, is this is one of the most popular warmup songs. I remember being in fourth grade and warming up with 50 jumping jacks, 50 crunches, and 20 push ups, and feelings completely like jelly. Little did I know, warmups would become much harder in high school.
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During my junior year, I was truly in a funk. I was struggling with a sene of belonging, and also was feeling depressed more times then not. My nerves seemed to consume me and days felt long. I was listening to Zach Bryan for a while at this point and he quickly became one of my favorite artists. I truly felt like his lyrics came from the heart and could often pin point exactly how I was feelings. I was eagerly awaiting the June day that I would get to see him live in a concert. I remember standing in the stadium with my hands gripping one another waiting for him to arrive, when I heard the electric guitar strums at the beginning of “Overtime“. The rest is history.
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Throughout my whole life I had always loved hockey. My dad has always been a huge fan of the sport and swears the only reason he didn’t ever play was due to that fact that he couldn’t skate on ice backward. This defaulted him to be a super fan instead. This guy is the biggest hockey lover I know. When I was younger and wasn’t consumed by dance, friends, homework, and watching Netflix, we would always attend hockey together. I remember learning all my favorite dad rock songs at the rink. This song specifically played every time, and I remember my dad tapping his foot while scrolling on Twitter.
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During Christmas time, I spent a lot of time with my family. I remember during my sophomore year, we were heading back from a celebratory birthday dinner for my mom on Christmas day, because they fall on the same day. We were sitting in the car when this song came on. I remember I began to sing, and suddenly my whole family was joining with me. Everyone but my grandma. She was looking around the car with amusement, and confusion. Although she wasn’t singing along with us she was smiling ear to ear. For the remainder of the car ride, our voices were so loud they were blaring over the radio.
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Now that I am nearing the end of my senior year, emotions seem to flood me everyday. I often scroll back through my photos and videos to check up on old memories. I remember at the beginning of the year, I decided to make a TikTok slideshow with some of my favorite memories. The song that was on the TikTok was “Use Somebody.” I often go back and watch that video when I’m feeling nostalgic, and it is now a song I will forever correlate with my senior year, and all the wonderful memories I have gather overtime with my best friends.
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This past weekend me and my team headed down to the Target Center for my last state tournament ever. We had been gearing up all year, and sitting in third place going into state. We danced in prelims and had advanced to finals with excitement. We met back in our dressing room to hear the scores and review our placement; we were in fourth. We knew if we wanted this we would have to fight to the end to pull ahead of Lakeville North. We went out to finals and gave our everything to have the best performance of the season. Before we headed out for awards, our coach told us she wanted us to prepare to hear their name called for third over ours to avoid a feeling of overwhelming sadness. We stepped on the floor and held our head on one another while anxiously awaiting for them to called third. That’s when we heard “Sartell.” The rest was history.
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