Me + music = forever

After attending a concert last Friday night, I began to contemplate how I choose to like/dislike certain bands/songs. It usually has more to do with life experiences occurring while listening to the music, rather than the quality of the music. Usually. The following few paragraphs serve as examples.

My love for ska music takes me back to two important concert moments. The first being the Relient K and Five Iron Frenzy concert with Lucas and Brandon Pinkard. The second being playing hacky sack with Six Foot Midget (local ska band that never made it big), and hoping that one day I'd get to marry the back up guitarist. I was in high school, okay?

Every time I hear the Phenomenon album by Thousand Foot Krutch, I think of my drives to and from Fort Worth, Texas, when I worked for the Fort Worth Star Telegram my senior year of high school. During this time, I also attended the first concert festival by myself and had such a strange experience.

When I hear Sanctus Real, two moments again stick out. The first, being shopping with the guitarist Chris, while at a Youth Specialties (I may have also had dreams of marrying him someday--hmm.. I sense a theme). The second is a more complicated story you may not care about, but I'm going to type out any way.

My first mission trip out of state was in Shreveport, Louisiana. One of my team members was dating a guy from another team (we were divided into teams to repair various houses in the city). She told about how great he was, yada yada yada, but then, post mission trip, they break up. She was devastated, but over time, we lost touch and I didn't hear from her any more.

Then I got my first job. This guy named Jordan worked there, and we instantly became really great friends. Nothing romantic, we just joked around a lot and liked to take our breaks at the same time to talk. Turned out, he was dating my friend from first mission trip! One of the issues with the former boy was that he was too young, so she began to pray for someone older than her and voila--Jordan. To make it more interesting, he's exactly one year older than her. To make it even more interesting, she's exactly one year older than me. We're all born on the same day!!

Where does Sanctus Real fit in? Well, when I left for college, Jordan gave me a parting gift of SR's latest album at the time, Fight the Tide. There's a song on there that he dedicated to me, something to remember whenever I was having a bad day. The album is still one of my favorites to this day.

So back to the concert. Fee played. My experience with Fee began at Dare 2 Share in Denver two falls ago. As in the season fall. They played and my favorite time was singing I Am Free and dancing with Susie and Janelle. Maybe the lyrics aren't as deep, but the moment was unforgettable. There was also a song played at Merge two weeks ago that really hit my heart. When I looked up the song, I noticed it was written by Steve Fee. It wasn't till the concert on Friday that I made the connection.

On the other side, I've experienced praise songs to Jesus that are deep and theological, but are ruined by watching superficiality in the people I care about singing the songs. That's the nicest way I can put it, without sounding too judgmental (I'm being judgmental in case you didn't catch that. It's a stumbling point for me, but I'm trying to be honest).

Then came David Crowder (skipping a few of the bands for time's sake). My absolute favorite time with David Crowder was at one of my first Youth Specialties conferences as a high school student. They weren't as famous back then. We had a night led by them, Chris Tomlin, and speaking by Louie Giglio. Right now my mouth waters thinking about how great that lineup is!

That's when I was introduced to O Praise Him. I go back to that glimpse of Sharayah history EVERY time. It is beautiful. I think of Matt Ryd making sure Lorna learned the piano part for when they played it at Cru. Just for me (everybody say, Awwww). I think of Christmas Conference when it was played, by another band, at midnight prayer time. It's just all around one of my favorites.

They also sang We're Gonna Sing Like We're Saved. Who, of the Lakeland youth group, doesn't think of John Green during this song? Exactly..

The video below is another important one.

With this (originally written by John Mark McMillen), comes my first experience with 4Cs. That is, Mark Poshak and Steve Nelson leading worship. I was sitting next to (at the time) some girl named Kelsey Crawford who said I was a good singer. Psh, you should hear her! And the song has brought comforting memories about the youth group ever since.

Why do we do this? Why do we connect sounds (and sights and smells for that matter) with experiences so strongly? I'm not always sure. There are songs I shouldn't like because of sadder experiences. But I still listen to Jon McLaughlin, certain Streetlight Manifesto songs, etc. with the utmost joy.

Then again, there was one band at the concert that I don't associate with positive memories. I had a hard time listening to them and being open to their lyrically strong music. I dunno. I like 'em, but I can't get over the memories. I know it's not fair to do that, but I also don't know how to stop it.

To end on a happier note, one more memory driven song. The very simple Dance in the River by Chris Tomlin. All of our family had just resolved a fight, which was long and painful, and in celebration, we played Chris Tomlin's album. I just remember singing and dancing to this song at close to midnight, being very thankful for family.

He can make everything glorious, can't He?