Note from author Virginia: This is what I’m wrote during a 8-10am power hour. I was going to work on one of my short stories, but then I heard the song Wish You Were Here on the radio. That was the first rock song I really, truly fell in love with, and it made me so happy that I ended up writing about my musical development over the years. This excerpt is from the end of my piece. I’ll polish it up and post the whole thing on my blog later, when I’m sane enough to edit it. Coffee was a terrible mistake.
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For Christmas 2011, Aaron gave me a mix. It was six CDs long. One hundred and four songs. According to iTunes, that’s 6.3 hours of music. It took him from August until Christmas to make it. I love that mix so much. It exposed me to music I had never heard before: Boards of Canada, Rilo Kiley, The New Pornographers, Jonathan Coulton, Elliot Smith, Smashing Pumpkins, Reel Big Fish, The Pixies, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and the Magnetic Fields, to name just a few. Unsurprisingly if you know me, I love depressing or bittersweet music. I love that feeling of cathartic pain. That’s why I listen to the Magnetic Fields even when I’m not depressed. I listened to that mix over and over and over for months. I still listen to it all the time. It was one of the most revolutionary things that ever happened to my musical tastes.
Aaron’s next mix in early 2012 was more rock based, and that eventually got me in to Garbage, big time. I’ve developed a love for 90’s type grungy music, especially Garbage and the Pixies. Lots of synth, female vocals, a driving beat, but not too distracting, so I can still space out. In April of that year, Robert introduced me to Nirvana, and I got my hands on Green Day’s American Idiot. This perfect storm of angry teenager music sent me in to a severe angsty stage. Angst lead me to Paramore, which lead me to Cherri Bomb (who I still have a massive girl-crush on, squeeee!!), whose amazing cover of The Pretender lead me to Foo Fighters, which inspired even more angst, and high-volume headbanging! So dark, so edgy!
It took him a couple months, but Aaron eventually turned me in to one of the greatest Protomen fangirls of all time. The Protomen are fuckin’ amazing. The gradeur, the grit, the catchy beats, the incredible lyrics, and the compelling storyline. I love them so much. We went to their concert in Seattle for our anniversary and rocked out hearts out. It was amazing.
Music has always been important for me. I was never very good at playing it, but I love listening to it. Through all my stages, I’ve never really found a theme to what I like, except that when I like it, I like it a lot. I love Nirvana, but I’ll also dance my heart out to Call Me Maybe. I listen to Garbage religiously every time I write, but I’ve always adored swing music. I think what I love about music is the way it makes me feel. For me, music either captures what I feel, or inspires a feeling in me. Music is an expression of human emotion. I love Nirvana because I’m angsty and angry, I love the Protomen because I’m a dramatic show off, I love silly pop songs because I’m silly and happy, and I still love Wish You Were Here because I love that bittersweet feeling, where you’re sad because you’re happy, and happy because you’re sad.