By Rebecca Sowell for UP Magazine Spring Issue 2019
I squint as I focus my gaze on the Mediterranean Sea. She twinkles, welcoming me. She can tell I’m a newcomer by the way I look at her, the way I consider every phantom current and bouquet of foam.
Facing Africa, I close my eyes for a second and relish in this new sea scent. It smells distinctly different from my local ocean back home in Florida, although the Atlantic and the Mediterranean are interconnected. It’s saltier and more concentrated. More ancient. I’m standing at the foot of Western civilization’s beginnings, the convergence of cultures.
My own beginning. This is my first trip to Spain, and I feel oddly emotional to step foot in a new country, nevertheless meet an entirely new ocean. Maneuvering through the sand, I dodge a group of children barreling toward the sea as I untangle my earbuds. I need to soundtrack this feeling and store it somewhere.
Elton John’s wistful voice pipes through my phone as I watch the sunbathers flip over, avoiding eye contact with the men selling upcharged water bottles. I shut my eyes again.
They say Spain is pretty, though I've never been
Well Daniel says it's the best place that he's ever seen
Oh and he should know, he's been there enough
Lord, I miss Daniel, oh I miss him so much
I open my eyes and I’m in my Ohio apartment. Snow is falling steadily outside, but I'm radiating warmth. I’m still listening to “Daniel” by Elton John and I realize I’m smiling at my wall. I turn up the volume and re-enter my time machine.
A song is just an array of organized notes and sounds. Realistically, it shouldn’t have the power to zoom us back to the past in visceral detail. The concept of it sounds fictional. And yet, it’s been eight months since I visited Valencia, Spain, and I can still feel every emotion and sensation I had during my Mediterranean encounter, all with a simple press of “play.”
We’ve all felt it, but do any of us really know why music conjures vivid memories? Neurologists and music therapists are enthralled by this question, and they’ve dedicated countless hours of research and studies to find the answer. As it turns out, music is the closest thing to magic that we have.
It starts behind the forehead. The medial prefrontal cortex is the hub of memories, emotion and, of course, music. Our brains are hardwired to link music with long-term memory, resulting in a deep emotional recall. If our memories are sporadic dots floating around in our minds, music is what transforms them into constellations.
Pop music is especially dominant when recollecting memories. In the “Pop Philosophy” episode of the KCRW podcast, “The Organist,” philosopher Simon Critchley discusses how catchy melodies play a large part in memory and association.
“Memory is kind of like a record collection,” Critchley said. “Life is punctuated by a series of episodic blips that can be linked to specific music experiences or songs. Pop music is the way the world opens up.”
If you go to any public place, you’ll likely hear a pop song playing. The melodies are contagious and persistent, they crawl into our heads and refuse to be forgotten. Regardless of whether we like it or not, pop music is always there. It’s generational—it punctuates each decade like an audible time capsule. My parents are reminded of their childhoods in the ’70s when they hear “Mr. Blue Sky” by Electric Light Orchestra. Meanwhile, I’m brought back to being an angsty eight-year-old whenever I listen to any Kelly Clarkson song.
Psychologists call this nostalgic phenomenon the “reminiscence bump.” When we’re young, everything is new and meaningful, so we’re more likely to register memories during this period than any other stage in life. Pop music is inherently timeless because it bookmarks points in our lives and allows us to revisit them any time, even decades later.
This explains why people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease are sometimes able to recall a memory in perfect detail when they listen to a melody associated with a past experience. Although music therapists say that music is not a cure for memory loss, it’s able to provide a rare bit of solace for dementia patients and their families.
Music therapy has proven to be helpful in trauma patients as well. The limbic system, or the “emotional brain,” is where we contextualize our feelings and register sensations like sounds, or incidentally, our deepest terrors and traumas. Since sound and trauma both evoke visceral and subliminal reactions, music can act as a pathway to recognizing and uprooting fear-based reflexes. Music can help soothe anyone, from babies in newborn intensive care units, to war veterans.
“Because the music has a beginning and an end,” said music therapist Katie Down in a Pitchfork interview. “We are able to move through the process [of healing], to hold the feeling as it happens in the moment.”
The idea of using music to redefine negative memories is incredibly powerful and radical. That’s the beauty of it all—music gives us the power to choose. We can choose to reclaim meanings for our own and search for peace. Or we can even choose to return to that tender feeling of meeting the ocean for the first time.
Memory Palace: A Playlist
“Daniel” - Elton John
“Supercut” - Lorde
“The Night We Met” (feat. Phoebe Bridgers) - Lord Huron
“Carolina in My Mind” - James Taylor
“Two Slow Dancers” - Mitski
“The Boys of Summer” - Don Henley
“Two Ghosts” - Harry Styles
“The Suburbs” - Arcade Fire
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