I've Got the Music in Me

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She was so young, she still saw all the wonder of the world with wide eyes. She spent her Christmases enraptured with a snow globe in her grandmother's house that would play songs about snow with a few twists of its handle. She spent her days putting on concerts, singing in her room, playing around with her dad's guitar. She spent countless hours in her dad's old, white, beat up suburban with the giant speakers, bouncing with the beat of the rock and roll he played over the radio. She spent her young life surrounded by music, so it was no surprise to anyone that when she grew up, music was so ingrained in who she was that she walked to the beat of the soundtrack in her head. When she was sad she played loops of Taylor Swift, when she was happy she danced around her room to whatever pop song she had stuck in her head that day, when she was angry and turned Evanescence and Joan Jett up in her headphones as loud as possible. And as you've probably guessed by now, that girl is me. In only my second year of high school, I am experiencing textbook pages that my children and grandchildren will read as I read about the Spanish Flu in 1912 and the London cholera outbreak of 1854 and the Black Plague in the Dark Ages. In this time of uncertainty, I am doing what I have always done when I am stressed or sad or angry: I am turning up the music.

This time has hit me hard. I am in every way a social butterfly, and I have been deprived of those in person connections that I so crave. Even the memories of my friends have a soundtrack of their own. In the car with my best friend belting out her favorite trashy show tunes. Sitting on the green roof of my school with my classmates dancing along to Bollywood soundtracks. My Algebra teacher playing classical while we're studying. My AP World History teacher playing us music from the Renaissance. And even in the small moments where there is no music, but there is still the rhythm that I am always listening for. The girl in the desk next to me in English tapping her pencil. The boy sitting across from me with his headphones on tapping his foot to his own playlist. The shuffling of my teacher slowly grading papers. The heavy breathing of every kid in the school when allergy season hits its peak.

I have taken this solitude and this free time to dream up the perfect playlist, a playlist I would never have had time to make before this, and I am thrilled to share it with all of you. But first, I want to take you through the process so that you can create your own as well. Because it isn't exactly easy. When it comes to the perfect playlist, there are certain rules that need to be followed.

Rule #1: There must be variety. If you have a playlist made up of the same genre or the same songs playing on the radio, its not a playlist. You are essentially listening to the same song on repeat. We have all of this time on our hands, it's time to explore the all of the music that is out there. Listen to genres and artists you wouldn't listen to normally.

Rule #2: Make sure the songs you pick are ones that you love. A perfect playlist can not be made up of songs that you kind of like, or that you only listened to once. You won't want to listen to this playlist again. Find songs that really resonate with you, that you find yourself singing to yourself, that you listen to on repeat without getting sick of them.

Rule #3: Listen to exactly what you want. There is no need to be embarrassed because this is your music, and no one else's. If you love "Shake it Off" by Taylor Swift, or "California Girls" by Katy Perry, or even "9 to 5" by Dolly Parton, turn that up as loud as you want. Listen to what you love.

OK, OK, you may be thinking "wow, she sure has a lot of rules, how do I know she's even following them herself?" Well, I assure you I am. So, I humbly present to you my own personal/perfect playlist and some of it's highlights. Well, in my opinion they are all highlights, but it would take to long to write about every song so I'll pick the especially great ones.

If you've already taken the time to investigate, you'll see that I have followed Rule # 1 religiously. There is a blended mix of most genres of music out there. It has a little rock, a little R&B, , a little pop, a little alternative, a little indie, and a teeny dash of country. I want to share with you one song from each genre, the song of that genre that means the most to me, that resonates with me the most.

For alternative music, my heart immediately goes to "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" by My Chemical Romance. This is one of those songs that you have to play loud, that you have to scream the lyrics too, that you have to almost blow your eardrums out listening to. This is the song that 12 year old me funneled all her tween rage and angst into. I played air drums on the table in my science classroom, air guitar in the library at school as I cleaned the shelves, sang the lyrics in the shower. And now, I funnel all my teenage angst and rage into it, but now I play air drums on my knees during assemblies, and I sing along to a real guitar, one that I don't have to play alone anymore.

For country, there is only one acceptable choice: "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton. It is important to note the difference between this and the Whitney Houston version (but don't worry, there will be some Whitney in here too). In my experience, the best songs to sing when you're sad belong to country. This version of the song is not a power ballad, but a sweet, soft song that even the weakest voice can still sing and sound lovely. This song will make you want to sit in a rocking chair near a window and sigh, thinking about your ex lover who died in the war.

For indie, I chose "Closer to Fine" by the Indigo Girls. This song is upbeat and fun, and I love to listen to it when I have doubts about myself, because it reassures me and anyone who listens to it that even when it gets hard, even when you feel like you aren't enough, it will always get a little better. It just takes time. And for a teenage girl with clinical depression and anxiety, that is the best message I can ever hear.

And now for pop. Remember in Rule #3, when I said not to be embarrassed? Well, this is my guilty pleasure. "Baby" by Justin Beiber. But let the record show I am not ashamed. This song has a beat, catchy lyrics, and Ludacris. What more can you want in a song? It has that perfect mid-2000's vibe that every artist now can only hope to recreate.

For R&B, I am again taking a trip down memory lane with "Low" by Flo Rida. Now that's a memory of school dances in middle school, where all we could feel was the beat and had no idea what the words really meant. With my friends in the school gym as our heads and feet pounded with the bass we could feel in our bones.

And rock. Almost all of my favorite songs on this playlist are from this genre, and I won't even attempt to choose a few. How could I? "Bohemian Rhapsody" with it's cacophony of sounds that somehow blend perfectly together, "Separate Worlds" by Journey and the iconic voice of Steve Perry? "Cherry Bomb" by Joan Jett and her raw female power that somehow speaks to all of my angst at once? I simply can't choose. I'll leave that choice up to you.

This quarantine has swept us all off of our feet and thrown us off our groove. But that's the great thing about humanity. We don't let it throw us off forever. We stumble a little bit, and then find a whole new beat to move along to until the next change comes along. So until I can get back to the norm, I'll content myself with the knowledge that I always have the music inside me to keep me moving down the road.