Corona Diaries: The Value of Music
I don’t think I’ve truly realized the value of music until this quarantine lockdown. Music is something I’ve always enjoyed, but never thought in depth about. Music was always a transitory pastime for me. I listened to music on the metro or while walking to class. Music reminded me of the time it took to get somewhere. Listening to music was not an activity I often really thought about.
During this quarantine, I have no trips on the metro. There is no walking to class. Now, I wake up, and sit in my bed, walk to a different location in my house, and sit there. There is no longer the need for traveling, so I found myself listening to less and less music. In turn, I found myself growing sadder and sadder as this absence continued.
But eventually that changed and I decided to listen to music once again. But not while I was doing something. Not while I was cleaning, or walking my dog, or going to the grocery store. I listened to music while lying down and focusing all my attention on what I was listening to.
The album I listened to was Mitski’s 2016 album Puberty 2. I have in the past fully appreciated an album, but during that time, my days of listening to music were usually filled with a lack of attention. I selected the songs I enjoyed, and ignored the rest of discography while only paying mind to the few I can listen to over and over. But this album, Mitski, told an actual story, one that many may be able to relate to. It’s a story about the nostalgia of a past relationship, a relationship in which two people are incredibly different and yet find peace with one another's differences, as exemplified in the track "Your Best American Girl". It’s a story about the recklessness of youth and the inability to control ourselves, as exemplified in the track "Thursday girl".
There are two types of listeners of music, the album people and the playlist people. I used to be a playlist person, but this quarantine, with so much time on my hands, has turned me into an album person; someone that will listen to the whole story the album is trying to tell.
