Killing Me Softly With His Song

Song of the Day 01/16/2023

Killing Me Softly With His Song by The Fugees, Ms. Lauryn Hill

Here’s a what came first question I think is much better than the dull, lame, nauseating chicken and egg debate: does music dictate a scene, or does a scene dictate the music? Better asked, does the love for a song stem from our personal associations, or from the pure elation of the song itself? I bring this up because some of my favorite songs are from movies. If they’re not from a particularly epic scene of a film, my most cherished songs are often correlated with memories, good and bad, whether they be of youth, or the good moments with friends, family, and ‘lovers,’ those certain periods of time where I felt as though I was finally beginning to come into myself. I am, and I think we all are, so in love with the soundtrack to those great many self-actualizing periods that come and go throughout a lifetime the way a tide moves in and out of shore; yes, we self-actualize over and over again, constantly. There isn't one period that defines identity, only a collection of disparate periods that exist between the confines of place and time. Anyway, such is the subjectivity of music, the reason smart people often love cheap songs, masculine men cry to feminine ballads, and the most classically feminine of women seem to lose their minds at the dirtiest, harshest forms of hip-hop. Nothing cerebral can explain the feeling of pure gut-wrenching joy and sense of self that music brings to fruition. But again, is this because of the song, or the variety of experiences we associate with the song? 

I choose this Fugees track because, back when when I used to DJ at clubs in New York until 4 am before getting up for high school the next day, I remember it distinctly as the first song I ever played that garnered a reaction from a crowd, a crowd of only 3 people at a destitute little bar in the Lower East Side on a Tuesday night. Still, I remember playing this song in and noticing a bored-looking group suddenly get up off their seats and begin to dance, with three of the six available arms rising up into the air as their hips twisted and turned. It was the first feeling I’ve ever had of doing a good job in the professional world (and one of the last). I also choose this particular track today because it’s a popular song that many, many people love and cherish and it’s impossible to discern whether I’d be obsessed with it anyway, without any specific memory attached to it. The problem is that I probably would be just as obsessed with this song due to hypnotic repetition, from hearing it countless times in cars, department stores, bars, and parties. Perhaps my memories as a young DJ only elevate this song to something greater. At the same time, from as objective a standpoint as I can gauge, it really is just an impressive song that transcends silly labels assigned by taste and genre. It has a range of elements that make people feel sad, sentimental, cheerful, and energetic; not that many songs achieve that all at once. I’m still not sure if certain songs are great only due to association or whether they’re merely brilliant in and of themselves, the answer is a blurry mix of both. 

There are also the associations and folklore we create on our own. Say, you hear a song once and like the melody but aren’t crazy about it. On a whim, you decide to add it to a playlist. This song, by chance, always happens to come on first when you shuffle this playlist, like an irritating extended family member you only invited over once but keeps showing up. Over time, as with the irritating extended family member, you begin to appreciate the song’s presence, even to value and admire it. This song accompanies you through all sorts of ups and downs you experience throughout the course of a season, of a year, of a phase, of a life, and before you know it, Mariah Carey’s latest single has found a special place in your heart. Music coalesces beautifully with lived experience, and it’s a very thin line indeed between our lives that we interpret and the art that we encounter. 

If you’d like to build your own memories with some of the songs I’ve written about in this newsletter, check out the Calendance Spotify playlist.