Measuring Moments

By Andrew R. Duckworth

I tend to measure time with music. When I was seven? “Something About You” by Level 42, not because that was the year it was released, but because I remember hearing it over the speaker of a clothing store while we were traveling when I was seven. Perhaps it seems strange to others. Maybe it is. But I think we all have our rather quirky systems of measurement in one way or another.

When I was eight, it was practically any song by Seal. We listened to so much of his music on the way to many different places. “Don’t Cry,” “Prayer for the Dying.” When I think about the past, I usually think about events accompanied by the soundtrack of the time, whether those events are good or bad. Often, the music makes the bad events more bearable. Such is the power of music.

Perhaps I am a bit strange in this regard; it’s a strangeness, however, that I’m happy to embrace, particularly in the time we live in. Years from now, if I’m blessed with such time, I wonder what music would accompany this moment should I think about it. Currently, I listen to a wide variety of music: shoegaze, 80s new wave, 80s and 70s rock, contemporary metal, classical, soundtracks… I don’t listen to contemporary pop. I gave up on the genre some time ago. Much of the music produced today, if you can call it such, is forgettable. It won’t reach the notoriety of songs like “California Dreaming,” or “American Pie,” or “We Are the Champions.” It’s here for a quick profit and into the drawer of history it will go. It might get pulled out again years from now by a toddler who won’t know what to do with it.

Moments are measured by music in my mind, regardless of the lyrics. The most pleasant of moments can be accompanied by a song with the most complex and heartbreaking lyrics so long as they are strung together by a pleasant melody. It’s strange, but I imagine there is something to it. I remember hearing about dementia patients who temporarily regain some memory when hearing an old song that was meaningful. Maybe this is something that a lot of people do subconsciously, myself included.