Wisdom from the Road #37

On music

Music invokes memories.

There are songs that remind us of significant moments in life. And then there are songs that draw up vivid pictures of insignificant and uninteresting moments.

Whenever I hear David Guetta's Just One Last Time I am reminded of the time my friends and I docked at a secluded patch of beach in El Nido. As the boatmen were grilling the fish for lunch, this was blaring from a friend's portable speaker, and I was sitting on the sand while my friends were in the water dancing like we were in a club and not the beach.

Adam Levine's Lost Stars brings me back to the time we were speeding along Busan's highway. My two Korean friends had taken the time to show me around their city and sometime during the drive, they had switched their music from Korean songs to English songs. When Lost Stars played they asked if I had seen Begin Again and they were incredulous when I answered in the negative.

The yellow walls of Orange Pekoe Guesthouse close in on me whenever I hear James Bay's Hold Back the River. This song was playing as we were talking to the receptionist on our last day there.

The song's message did not relate to me at that time nor to the situation I was in, but it was what was playing at that moment. And whenever I hear those songs playing on the radio, at the mall, in a coffee shop, these vivid pictures of ordinary moments run through my mind and I find myself smiling.

For more lessons from the road, please visit Go Learn.