I wanna dance with somebody
An ode to songs that ripple through our lives
Dear beloved reader,
What is a song that you have multiple core memories attached to? A song that has followed you throughout your life, a song with layers of love woven into it each time you hear it?
There are a few such songs for me. One is Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody, which I find myself listening to and dancing to alone in my house on this Friday afternoon, belting out loud enough for the neighborhood to hear.
It takes me back to sleepovers at Rebecca Roller’s house in elementary school, around the time that album came out, and we stayed up late singing the entire album (sorry, Rebecca’s parents!).
It takes me back to my BFF Michael’s birthday some ten years ago, with Michael, Ronnie and I belting this out on his karaoke machine at the top of our lungs.
And now, it takes me back to the last moments of our Intro to Peace Education class, which we ended in a glorious liberating dance party, also belting it out at the top of our lungs and dancing around the bamboo hut.
I cannot listen to this song without all of those memories pouring through, the joy of those moments with these beloveds across decades reverberating through time, each new layer adding more joy and depth and delight to the experience of listening, singing, and dancing. Each of those moments of disparate times, entangled in the melody, alive in the moment the song is played.
This is one of the treasures of music. It holds so much more than notes and words and melodies and beats. It holds memories. A song is a time capsule, and at the same time, also becomes anew each time we hear it, especially the treasured ones, with those memories being revisited and retrieved, feelings present once again.
Another such song is anything by Rusted Root (especially Send Me on My Way, only because it is the one you are most likely to randomly hear), which takes me back to being 15 and listening on full blast in our parents’ basements (sorry, parents!). Of having the Forbeses drop us off at some club in Oakland to see them on a school night (now that I am a parent, I realize how awesome and trusting it was of our parents to do this). Of many live concerts all over Pittsburgh and beyond over many years. Of the time in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho when Jared and I missed the boat at Redfish Lake and hiked across the ridge and nearly died in the process but luckily didn’t, and on our way home, giddy from being alive, blasted Rusted Root and ran up Knob Hill to catch the sunset while singing. Anytime I hear Rusted Root, I am transported to the best memories of Pittsburgh, of my youth, of family and community and home.
This past December, when I was en route to Pittsburgh to visit for the holidays, I was in line to board the plane on the jetway, and someone’s ringtone went off, set to Send Me On My Way. It felt like a little affirmation, a cute smile from the universe. Be excited. You’re going home. In fact, you are home right now.
I always use music in my classes, at a minimum, just having it playing when students arrive in the spirit of welcoming and radical hospitality. Sometimes I also more intentionally choose a song that speaks to the themes of the day that we arrive to once class has started. I also invite them to bring in music to share, as sharing music shares so much about our lives, histories, stories, souls. I have a completely unruly collaborative class playlist, that has way too many vibes to just listen to on its own, but that is more of a library of musical nuggets people in my community have passed on (I am sure some of you dear readers have made contributions to this!). I have a gratitude playlist and a dreams playlist. We co-created a playlist for the class on religion, culture and peace, which even includes a song that one of the students wrote for the class as a message of peace to the students at my daughter’s school for International Day of Peace:
Music is memory. Music is pedagogy. Music is everything.
What are those songs and artists for you, dear reader? I would love to hear them. Leave them in the comments or send me a message. Maybe we could even make a collaborative Enchantable playlist together :)
Happy Friday, dear reader!
With the love and joy of music,
Stephanie
Music and scent have uniquely powerful ways of triggering memories and associations...
"Wonderwall"...my husband and I had climbed Sacre Coeur and made our way to one of the balconies at the top of the basilica. Below we could hear a couple of buskers belting out a pretty good cover of Wonderwall to the crowd gathered around them. As their voices floated up to us looking out over Paris, we sang along quietly, sitting on a bench holding hands. We both still know every word.
We were traveling in New Zealand when we heard Whitney Houston died, so when I hear her on the radio now, I think back to that day on the road on the North Island. And Gotye's "Somebody that I used to know" was everywhere in spring 2012. By then we were In Australia and I have such a strong memory of everyone nodding along to it in that lovely hostel in Katoomba you recommended. How time has flown!
Thank you for the prompt. ❤️