First of all, if I just had to choose one album that already exists to define my life, I can’t even begin to guess what to use. I feel like no one band has a single album that captures the complete essence of my life. Or anyone’s really- life is a weird, jumbled thing, and if a band is any good, their albums should be holistic enough that they can’t really express that hodgepodge of human experience that we call life.
So instead I suppose I’d have to create an album with a collection of songs that sort of represents each chunk of my life. I haven’t lived that long (even though I feel really old sometimes) and obviously I have more musical attachments to more recent parts of my life, and also of course there are certain songs that represent one very specific thing. Now, keep in mind, my life never has been and probably never will be terribly exciting- no whirlwind romances, jet-setting action/adventure, or heart-rending drama. It’s like the lives of the other 99.9% of the human race- pretty average, good enough for me but not that fascinating to other people. I don’t have very good stories or mini-plots within my life, but fortunately I am a good enough storyteller that I’ve fooled people into thinking I’m interesting. But what I’m getting at here is that no one would bother making a movie about my life, so this soundtrack is moot, but I’ll do my best to come up with some stuff.
Birth/infancy: I really can’t come up with anything good for this. Obviously I don’t have memories from back then, and I don’t like corny pop/country songs that might potentially be about children. (Is that what pop music is about?) I guess just to be really visceral about it I’ll go with “Wet From Birth” by The Faint. It’s the only song about birth I can come up with.
Childhood through pre-puberty: again, didn’t listen to a lot of music at this stage in my life. I suppose just insert some generic Gloria Estefan song in here because that’s what I listened to as a child- because my parents have awful taste in music. I’m sorry. Also maybe a Spice Girls song from when I was about 9 or 10.
Prepuberty: “It’s All Been Done” by Barenaked Ladies. To this day I have distinct memories of this song and being in 6th grade, which was awful for me because I had no friends. The one girl in my class who was nice to me (because she was awesome and didn’t judge people for being uncool) introduced me to BNL and I think it was the first band that wasn’t distinctly pop (although it was pop, but alternative pop at least) and which I formed visual memories along with the music.
Puberty/ early teenagerhood: This is actually sort of tough. I can’t think of anything to definitive for this period. I listened to all that poser punk crap that was so popular at the time, Avril Lavein (or however it’s spelled) and Good Charlotte, but also stuff from the radio like *Nsync and Linkin Park and such. I guess just something generic that represents the early 2000s.
Age 16: Now we’re getting to the point where I gave up on the radio and MTV and started listening to music for myself. I won’t pretend any of it was good necessarily, but at least I was in control of it. So there’s two songs for this. 1) Swing, Swing by All American Rejects because I remember singing it at Safety Town to each other and that was the first CD I ever spent my time in my car driving around listening to and 2) Story of the Year Anthem of Our Dying Day. YES I KNOW THEY’RE TERRIBLE. But I just remember singing out of my car in the pouring summer rain and thunder, belting at the top of my lungs. That’s a pleasant memory.
Age 17: Photobooth- Death Cab. This song reminds me of me in a way I can’t explain. There is more than one blog post about this, so I won’t go on.
Age 18: Swing Life Away- Rise Against. A perfect graduation song and I feel like it really captured that summer before my college career started.
Age 19: Something by the Shins. I don’t care what, I guess Red Rabbits maybe, or Phantom Limb. Those are the two that make me think of that year the most.
Age 20: Holland, 1945 by Neutral Milk Hotel. I had had this CD for a long time and never really listened to it until then and that song was just like… BAM. Not that the words or anything have anything to do with my life (I’ve never even read the diary of Anne Frank) but just… the song works for me I guess.
Age 21: Probably two things. Hot N’ Cold by Katy Perry, which I am completely aware is awful, but it reminds me so fondly of being 21 finally and going to the bars, and of course on the night of my birthday they played it twice in a row and it was perfect. And on a less stupid note, possibly Family Tree. For various reasons that song works very well for that year.
Age 22: To think that was just last year. There’s a lot of stuff that could work, but I have to go with The Suburbs (the song specifically) by Arcade Fire. With all the travelling I did and the major change of moving to the big city, I feel like it’s a perfect song to express how I felt about what I left behind.
Age 23: okay well I’m not even halfway through this, and since it’s so recent and there are so many things in my mind, there are a lot of options. I have a lot of different songs that make me think of a lot of different things very specific to the present moment in my life. But I’m going to go with Mondegreen by Yeasayer because right now, at this moment 1) it’s stuck in my head 2) the weather is gorgeous so I’m in a bright mood, and this is a bright song and 3) Yeasayer is on Conan tonight!
Okay that’s what I got. If I actually wrote a movie where I attempted to be interesting, I’m sure this list would change. It’s just a general vibe from what I’m coming up with right now.
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