Blog Post 22.
A year ago today I was listening to this album front to back, driving 40mph through the mountains of Oahu, HI.
Today I’m listening to it again, front to back, but I’m walking along the Spanish coast.
Both these moments are memories. In both it is raining, but from one I’m still soaked through, my cold, wet fingers trembling to type out the words you are reading. In both memories I look at the ocean, but in one it is clearly the Pacific and in the other, clearly the Atlantic.
In the space that distances these points in time from one another, the meanings of the songs on this album have changed. Perhaps what changed were the songs themselves.
One thing is certain: that between these points, my world transformed a bit. In the macro sense and in the micro sense, an altered me is listening to this album walking through the rain in Spain than was listening to it driving through the rain in Hawaii one year ago. And it’s much more than place that is different.
I was listening to that album at the beginning of some things, at the middle of others and, as is always the case in life, as some quietly took their leave of me. The beginnings and middles I’m thinking of are very special, cherished things to me. They are things that, yes, changed who I was and am, but that I know will continue to help shape me for some time- hopefully all my life.
Then, this album brought to mind different people than it does today- different relationships and dynamics. A fossil record of the world I inhabit. Then, I liked it: it was a fun, still fairly new record. I didn’t know much about Harry Styles or what he would mean for shaping some aspects of how my generation views its place in the world. Fortunately, I liked it enough to take it (at least somewhat) seriously and eventually dig deeper into its meaning, melodies and motivations.
In this year, some of these songs have attached themselves to splendid memories (including Harry’s concert that Madison, Nathan and I treated ourselves to in July). They have asserted themselves as more than fun songs (which they are, granted). They are songs to inform a generation that walks a fine line between true greatness and narcissistic self-destruction. The more I know these songs, the more I am assured that Harry and I must be really good friends in a parallel brane not too far from this one.
Anyway, his music is timeless and way more meaningful than you’d expect from someone who started his career in a boy-band. I could listen to it for ages.
I wonder what these songs will be a year from today.
Kulani Sol 