nostalgia

Music Monday | Blinding Lights – The Weeknd

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While watching the Australian Open this last week, they played a short clip of The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights as they cut to an ad break. Both G and I started singing and continued even as the ads began to play.

“This song is addictive,” I said as we arrived at a place where we no longer knew the words. I googled it and brought it up on YouTube. “I can’t explain it but it gives me the same feeling as Robert Miles’ Children and Darude’s Sandstorm. It’s compulsive. As soon as I hear it, I have to play it on repeat until the feeling subsides. Do you know what I mean?”

We tumbled down a rabbit hole of 80s synth and 90s dream trance as we tried to find other songs that filled us with the same feeling. I still don’t know what it is about the composition that makes this music so compelling to me, I just know it floods me with memories I’m not sure I have–flashbacks of nights in clubs, dancing like I’m the only one on the floor, laughing with dates in coffee shops, screaming as I ride rollercoasters at Disneyland for the fifteenth time that day, having friends in my 20s, being liked by people; a life I only imagine.

Which isn’t to say I didn’t have friends, I didn’t go dancing and I didn’t ride rollercoasters–but there is something in this music that drives a nostalgia I cannot name. And I wouldn’t want to. It’s enough just to feel it.

Music Monday | Lost On You – LP

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I’ve had the house to myself for almost two weeks now. I’ve never lived alone because of personal security and safety fears/phobias and associated OCD but these last two weeks have actually been glorious. And awful.

I’ve been able to do whatever I liked. Which mostly means tidying up, throwing things out, and keeping everything clean.

But it also meant streaming whatever music I wanted to listen to through the house at any time of day or night. I’ve had an acoustic covers Spotify playlist on repeat for a few weeks but a few days ago, a friend on Instagram introduced me to LP.

And oh my god. All I listen to now is LP, on repeat, at maximum volume. Something in her vocals digs right into my gut and it is stirring up too many memories. Too many feelings. But I can’t turn her off. I can’t stop. Something in her music spins me back a lifetime. And as disconcerting and disarming as it is, I want more. I want more of my old life, more of old me, and more of LP.

Here are two versions of her song Lost On You. When I first heard it, I had a strange sense of déjà vu. Even though I knew I hadn’t heard of her. But I feel her, and now I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know of her. There is no “before LP”.