I’ve created almost 150 Spotify playlists in the last seven years (green flag), but a majority are filled with music from artists I began listening to six or more years ago (is that a red flag or is it a beige flag?). Maybe this ratio isn't too shameful right now, but if it doesn’t change in the next 10 years, I might be (or feel like I should be) a little embarrassed.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my and others’ relationships with music ever since reading an article about how music preferences set in between 13 and 16 and music taste and discovery stagnates by 30 (it’s a great article: When Do We Stop Finding New Music? A Statistical Analysis).
Though I don’t have a whole summer to click around on YouTube or Tumblr to find music like I did in grade school, I do listen to different artists as often as I can. When I’m lazy: Spotify’s Discover Weekly. When I’m more invested: clicking around the “Fans Also Like” section of artist pages on Spotify, scrolling through lists on Pitchfork, or browsing videos on YouTube (Mahogany, The Blogotheque, and SoFar Sounds are go-to’s). And yet, I’ve found very few artists or songs that I connect with as deeply as I did with those I started listening to at 15 years old.
Sure, there’s lots of new songs that I’ve enjoyed hearing, but they don’t make me feel as resentful of ex-lovers as with Kate Voegele or feel as melancholy as with Birdy or feel as enchanted as with Sufjan Stevens.
There have been maybe five artists of the past six years whose music I’ve really fallen in love with, which really isn’t that many compared to the number of artists whose songs were quickly cemented into my long-term memory bank between 2009 and 2018.
So that got me wondering: What is it about a song or artist that makes me like it so much? If I figure that out, will I be able to find new music that is also long-term-memory-worthy?
I had this idea that people enjoy songs more when the lyrics convey experiences that are dissimilar to their own but not so foreign that they can’t imagine themselves in the narrator’s place.
I was thinking of Taylor Swift’s cinematic universe of a discography (I think of her specifically, because literally no other artist has shown up in my Facebook and Instagram feeds as much as she has. And I read a lot of articles about her latest album when it came out): Most of her songs are grounded in what people assume to be her own life, but they’re told with a flair that stretches reality just enough to make them read like a television drama. It’s the perfect concoction to give listeners a taste of the main character energy that’s missing from their own lives.
This doesn’t mean that if you like Taylor Swift’s music you lead a boring life.
As I learned from an insightful interview (that I helped live-stream for my work with Porchlight Book Company) with Cass Sunstein, author of Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There, a book about habituation—how it dulls our experiences over time and how to renew our sense of wonder—the psychological tendency of habituation can trick anyone into feeling like their life is monotonous (I’ll talk more about this in a little bit).
So: Anyone else’s story is automatically more interesting by comparison to the story you’ve been living for the last however many years old you are.
As I thought more about the music I have liked for years, and I looked more closely at examples of other well-loved artists and their songs, I realized that maybe listeners’ relationship with music and lyrics is not so much an ‘opposites attract’ affair as much as it is a mirror.
“Enjoy the little things” is a popular phrase and cropped version of a wistful quote by writer Robert Brault. It’s found on self-care lists, wall art, Pinterest pages, t-shirts, stickers, and other cheugy merch (though much more in the U.S. than other countries, based off my many attempts to find this in different languages).
(I did find it in Spanish though)
I try my hardest not to let the mass commodification of the quote dilute the gravity of its message. (In the same way: maybe we should all stop making fun of ‘live, laugh, love’ and actually put some effort into actually living, laughing, and loving!) But it really does feel like a chore to ‘enjoy the little things’ sometimes.
As mentioned: it’s psychologically difficult to overcome our tendency to habituate to the constants around us. I found an article with author Cass Sunstein in which he shares a few tips on how to “dishabituate” to help you enjoy life more.
One of those techniques is:
“Take a break—remove yourself from your environment for a period of time, however short, and then return to it without making any permanent changes.”
When I think of the music that makes me the most emotional, and I think about myself listening to them, I imagine myself totally mesmerized—locked in to the words, the pitches, and the instruments—visualizing the story. It’s easier to escape into a song with a story that is nothing like my own life.
But even when the lyrics depict something I have already experienced myself, well-written lyrics paint the world in a new light and from a new perspective. I think about classic songs like “What a Wonderful World” and “Here Comes the Sun,” that are literally about everyday moments that 99.9% of people have experienced:
”I see friends shaking hands Saying, ‘How do you do?’”
and:
“Here comes the sun”
But the artists add their own perspective and help us put those visuals into a new context:
“They're really saying I love you”
and:
”Little darlin', it's been a long, cold, lonely winter Little darlin', it feels like years since it's been here.”
I used to think that we listened to music to live vicariously to someone much cooler than ourselves. And maybe we do sometimes. But I don’t think we would keep coming back to songs just to make ourselves feel bad about our own lives.
Instead, I think listening to music can help us enjoy the little things in life. And listening to music can probably do a better job than having a quote on our walls (Habituation, remember? When’s the last time you actually noticed the art on your walls?).
Listening to a song I enjoy removes me from my environment and provides a break from my own life, but listening to the lyrics can also provide a new perspective on elements of my own life.
Next time I’m listening to one of my many playlists, if I take a pause after each song is over, and I’m forced back into reality, can I see my own life clearer?
Bonus: Here’s a list from Reddit made up specifically of songs that people said make them appreciate life