YOU! ME! DANCING!: ON LOVE AND MUSIC
Words by Sinéad Mooney
Banner by Liam Horgan.
“Oh, but I dreamt of you last night / And the world split into two / I tried to listen to some records, but they were all / Singing about you”
Pulp, “Live On”
I love music. I love it in the way that I love vibrant colours or the sea; it’s instinctual, pure, tapping into a side of my brain that’s entirely non-verbal, in high contrast to my usual word-heavy method of operating. In the last two years, I’ve been listening to more of it than ever-- when everybody was posting about their Spotify Wrapped statistics last December, friends of mine were quite surprised by the fact that I had somehow managed to listen to 95,452 minutes worth of music. (That’s about 66 straight days worth of music listening, for the record.) I was pretty stunned by that myself-- though when I actually sat and thought about it, not that surprised, because with the whole pandemic situation preventing me from doing much of anything else, music became my main hobby. I listened to it in the shower, on walks, before falling asleep, after waking up, while writing essays, while writing plays, to calm myself down, to amp myself up. During my brief summer stint as a general operative in a chocolate factory working the night shift, I learned how to play music in my head to entertain myself while sticking little bags into boxes; I can still remember exactly what songs I had in my head then. (“Hat-Shaped Hat” by Ani DiFranco; “Sex Karma” by Of Montreal and Solange; “Song 2” by Blur; “Dad’s Best Friend” by The Rubberbandits.) For the past five years, I’ve been recording what song I had stuck in my head the most each week, then making a playlist of all 52 songs that rattled my brain that particular year. I probably tweet about music in some form or another at least once a day on average. It’s a real, earnest passion, one that scratches some great unknowable itch of mine.
Perhaps the thing I love most about music is how universal it is. Music has a certain level of ubiquity in life and culture that makes it impossible to entirely avoid; even the most casual, dispassionate listener will usually have at least one song they won’t turn off if it comes on the radio. There’s something so wonderful about bonding with somebody over how much you both love a song, even if (perhaps especially!) your music tastes are typically the complete opposite of each other. If there’s one feeling, one concept that I wish I could bottle up and take with me, it’s the sudden giddy rush of when a song you and your friends love comes on, and you’re all immediately overtaken with the compulsion to get up and start singing along. I genuinely believe with all my heart that few activities in this world are more sacred and joyful than dancing to music with your friends; in those brief, beautiful moments of time, you’re no longer one lone person, anxiously ambling about and hoping to connect, but a massive, interconnected, collaborative entity, moving and swaying and laughing, sweaty and glorious and euphoric. It’s holy and warm and beautiful, and I miss it so, so much. I ache for the day that I can shout out the words to “Kiss” or “3005” or “Flashlight” in somebody’s house at one in the morning, especially with all the new friends I made online this year who I yearn to make those memories with, too.
The way that music and memories mix in with each other of course means we often end up associating songs in our heads with people we love. Sometimes, it’s in fairly obvious ways, like specific songs or albums you know you both like, or that they introduced to you, or that was playing in the background when you kissed that one time. Other times, it might be the lyrics speaking to you, or even just the fact that that particular tune popped up on your playlist shuffle at the same time as a thought you had about them, and now that song and that somebody are perpetually, inextricably linked together in your head forever, even if that person doesn’t really have anything to do with “She Drives Me Crazy” by Fine Young Cannibals (for example) outside of that single instance of correlation. But even when it’s the loosest possible connection, it’s funny how powerful the association can be-- many people can attest to it being hard to return to a song you and your significant other shared after breaking up, and I’ve found myself still getting that pang of nostalgia and sentimentality upon listening to tunes bound up in recollections of ill-fated teenage crushes. That’s the transformative power of music in action for you; we bond over our shared passion for art, then superimpose our own passion onto it. Every song becomes about you, and them, and your feelings.
Of course, if we’re talking about the connection between love and music, one must surely mention how love and relationships are by far songwriting’s most popular subject, particularly in the lyricism of pop music. I’ve often maintained that the three-minute pop song is the perfect artistic vehicle for the expression of romantic feelings; there’s just something about glittery synths and the intense, soaring emotionality of a pop singer that pins down the experience of having a crush better than any other medium or genre can. Every time in my life where I’ve found myself rapidly falling either in or out of love, I’ve ended up listening mostly to pop. Sure, other music genres better known for their focus on heady and eloquent songwriting might have a more loquacious and studied take on the subject of crushes and big bursts of feeling, but nobody nails it quite like Carly Rae Jepsen does when she sings “Baby! Take me! To the! Feeling!”, do they? At the end of the day, the thump of a dance-y pop beat and the thump of a heartbeat are closer to each other than you might think.
But, ultimately, how love and music intertwine with each other can change and take different forms throughout your life-- I know it has for me, and it’ll continue to evolve and shapeshift with the more music I devour or receive a delightful new introduction to. To top my little ode to love and banging tunes off, I’ve put together a playlist for your listening pleasure of 20 love songs that have brought me joy over the last number of years-- hopefully they’ll remind you of your own blissful musical moments, too.
Sinéad Mooney is a 20-year-old writer and theatre artist hailing from Naas, Co. Kildare. She is currently a Communications student in Dublin City University, where she co-hosts the weekly music discussion show Reviewsic on DCUfm. Sinéad's writing has appeared in Charmolypi Literary Review, Connection, and Stoa Collective's Catalyst exhibit, and more of it can be found online at @sineadmmprose on Instagram.
