The Soundtrack of My Day
I don’t know about you but I have always found that music can be a powerful reflection of mood and emotion, and that particular songs can trigger memories, especially in relation to situations where strong emotions, like grief or intense joy, were experienced.
Ever since we lost our baby, I have been searching for a musical connection. That one song which connects to where I am, now, in this moment of bewildering loss. At first I thought it might be an old favourite, In the Arms of the Angel by Sarah McLachlan. I have loved this song ever since the City of Angels movie came out and though it says so much which I feel now, it wasn’t THE song. I felt the same about k.d. lang’s Hallelujah and Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. As much as I love them both, they still weren’t IT.
And then today, as we started driving to the memorial service, IT came on the radio in the car. A song which I already have powerful associations with as it was played at the funeral of a friend who died in a motor vehicle accident when I was a teenager. When I heard it again today, for the first time in a long time, I knew that this song, these lyrics, this ballad, was the one which continues to speak to me most about loss. That this would be THE song.
The soundtrack of my day today and many days still to come.
Do you have a special connection with a particular song or piece of music? Do you find music triggers memories or emotions?
For awhile, "Breathe in now" by George was my 'soundtrack' during an incredibly sad time. Even when I hear it now, it still triggers the emotions and memories of that time. But it also offers a sense of comfort.
Even though the song postdates the event by some years, Heather Nova's Waking Higher is my song about losing my little brother as a child. The first time I heard it, I was pierced with a sense of familiarity, like she was speaking the beats of my heart in its loss.
Tchaikowsky's 4th Symphony became a lifelong favourite after hearing this as a teenager played by the Warsaw Philharmonic at a live performance in Hobart my home town. Whenever I hear this I get the goosebumps and am transported back to that upstairs rickety fold up seat I sat in at the City Hall so long ago. Hearing this symphony just brings that event back alive for me. Even to the point of remembering the smell and background noise of the city traffic.
After our miscarriage I got all the tears out and thought I couldn't cry anymore. Then one day months later "Baby Mine" came into my head and I just cried and cried all over again. Now I can't sing it to my other children without crying about their brother or sister that we never got to know.