It’s Never Just a Song

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didn’t we all experience being left behind at least once?

people outgrow us. we outgrow them. sometimes they leave after one final blow, sometimes without giving us any explanation at all.

for a long time, i expected the same from songs.

that one day i would outgrow them.
that they would fade into little remains of a life i no longer recognized as mine.
but that never really happened.

i still carry songs from when i was a child.
from my first heartbreak.
from the years i wish i could erase.

they’ve seen every version of me.

the insecure me. the lonely me.
the depressed me.
yes even the version of me who wanted to end it all.

they’ve seen the happy me.
the i’m-so-in-love me.

and unlike people, they never said goodbye when one version was replaced by another.

sometimes i listen to a song i haven’t played in years and it feels like opening a door.

the room around me disappears, piece by piece.

i’m back in an old bedroom whose walls probably don’t even exist anymore.
i’m sitting on a train, destination unknown as i slowly recognize landscapes i had forgotten.
i’m sitting by the window, smoking as i watch the sky.
the smoke lingers in my lungs as if i hadn’t stopped smoking years ago.

for a few minutes, i see myself in the past.

nothing more than outlines.
never enough to remain there.
but always enough to know it was real.

and thats what songs do better than almost anything else.

they don’t just remind you of memories, they contain them.

you hear a voice, an instrument playing and suddenly an entire year builds up around you.

the people.
the places.
the feelings i buried deep in my heart.

but sometimes a song doesn’t take me back but into whole new dimensions.

from the outside, you only see me wearing headphones.

nothing special.

maybe i’m sitting in my room.
maybe i’m making myself coffee.
maybe i’m losing myself while staring at the big, wide sky.

but inside my head, an entire movie is unfolding.
every stranger passing by is ignored, every noise blocked out.

for the next few minutes, i won’t pay attention to you.
my mind is busy exploring the world a song just sketched out for me.
or maybe you’re simply boring but that’s another topic.

some songs throw me into rainy nights, others into hectic driving scenes and others drag me deep into the abyss.

some create conversations that never happened, relationships that never existed and versions of myself i may never become.
and somehow, for four minutes, all of it feels real.

thats the part people who only hear “a song” may never understand.

a song can tell stories without any words being spoken.
it can create empty cities and fill them with ghosts.
it can turn a memory into a place and an imagined life into something you briefly mourn losing.

just give me the right song and i swear, for five minutes, i will walk through the world as if i’ve entered a different universe.

i don’t just listen to my favorite songs anymore.

i experience them.

you’ll probably now say:

“it’s just a song”

no bitch, it’s an interdimensional portal into the deepest parts of my soul.

and i will always treat it as the treasure it is to me.

music is a friend i intend to keep forever.

- Nico

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