for me, at least, is how unbelievably nostalgic the whole ordeal is. It makes it hard to listen to music just for the music. I listen to Against Me! and all I can think about is the winter of 2007/2008 and drinking bourbon every night downtown and playing shows and hooking up with two girls I had no business being involved with. And how I hurt both of them while simultaneously being hurt by a third. I listen to Belle & Sebastian and I am immediately consumed with memories from 2005/2006. Falling out of love with my first real girlfriend, driving all over town with friends until 4 in the morning. Getting my third car. I remember the way the car smelled and I remember the way the cigarettes used to taste (maybe they taste the same and I just remember it differently). I remember seeing Kim Taylor downtown, flirting with a girl I had no business flirting with. Playing shows on the front porch and getting the cops called on me.
I listen to Jeff Tweedy’s solo stuff and all I can think about is the summer of 2007 and getting my heart broken and Seattle and that one cool teacher who let me eat in his class and listened to my music. And the way the air smelled back then and so on, and so forth.
I am probably exaggerating a little bit (I am definitely exaggerating a little bit). I can listen to all of those things in many circumstances without even thinking about it. But there’s always that pang of nostalgia. There’s always that flood of memories and for a split second I can even smell some of those things. For a second I feel like I’ve been transported back in time.
I thought I’d devised a way to fix it — listen to the shit so much that it’s not nostalgic anymore. But what ends up happening is the music becomes nostalgic for a new period of time. Wilco is the perfect example. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot symbolizes my first apartment and being lonely and chain-smoking inside and cleaning up dogshit. It used to symbolize laying in bed all day with a girl and driving my first car without a license. And someday it will symbolize something entirely different. I feel like every time this change in symbolization occurs parts of the old memories die. The old nostalgia is replaced with a newer, crisper nostalgia. That makes me kind of sad, but I don’t see any point in limiting the amount I listen to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (or any album, for that matter) just so that it reminds me of the same thing forever.
I have an electronic mix I made a year ago when I first moved to Chicago. I’ve been listening to it in the car lately because it reminds me of driving down Lake Shore Drive at dusk and staring at the lake. But I’ll keep listening to it because I enjoy it, and soon it will represent this point in time. I’ll get tired of it, and in 4 months I’ll listen to it again because it will remind me of recording school.
The human mind is fucking odd.
