Me, at about 16. And yes, I’m singing as I dance… I always have.
A few weeks ago, I was having an extra rough stretch of days. It might have been soon after the election so it was more like a couple of months ago. I taught my local class and then got in the car to drive home. I put on a random Spotify list from the 1980s and the song that popped up was Notorious by Duran Duran.
You might not know, but likely do, that I was a major Duranie all through high school and beyond. At this point, I’ve seen them four times, including twice in the last two years with Craig.
Their Notorious tour was the first time I saw them. I would have been 17/18 years old and my mother took me to Blossom in Ohio to see them (one of the places I just saw them with Craig, actually… time is funny, isn’t it?).
Anyway, as soon as that song started in the car, I felt a physical change in my body. And over the first bit of the song, my mind shifted and my heart opened. And I realized that I suddenly felt… really powerful.
That is the only word for it… powerful. REALLY powerful. That kind of youthful “I can do anything in this world” powerful.
It felt amazing. So over the next couple of weeks, whenever I got in the car, I put that song on and it kept working. It helped me to recover my sense of myself.
A lot of people see us as stuck if we listen to music from our youth. And you know me… I am constantly learning new music. I know what’s happening in the music world… always.
But there’s more to the music of our youth than just nostalgia.
About 14 years ago, I came across a study from 1979 called Counterclockwise, and I’ve talked about this study a lot over the years. A group of older men were brought to a house that only had things from their 20s. And they only listened to music from that time. Over the week, they regained what they thought was lost-forever mobility and their memories got sharper.
Now there are people working to replicate that study. You can look here. (I haven’t dug into all of the links yet, but I will be and I encourage you to.)
And recently there was a big cover article for National Geographic about how much aging really is just a cultural story. Hmmm… who has been yelling that for the last 15 years!?!? (That article is behind a paywall but I intend to get it. If anyone has access, read it and let me know what you think.)
Here’s the thing: there are big time benefits to tapping into the music of our youth on the regular.
And as you’ve heard me say countless times, there are HUGE benefits to moving to music we don’t know.
It’s a both/and thing. They each have benefits.
So here’s my question for you: what music makes you feel amazing? Or brings back a younger version of you?