Music Memory and its Power to Make Us Happy
Smashing a perfectly good guitar
My husband and I fell in love (or maybe just realized we had), during a fall colors weekend, a few decades ago. He’d booked a trip for us to go hiking in New Hampshire, so he flew into New York, and rented a car for us for the weekend.
We’d been doing the long-distance relationship for a bit, and this felt like a new stage. I still remember that when he picked me up and reviewed our musical choices so we’d be sure to have our favorites for the drive to Franconia. Our music was everything to us then, and we’d both just discovered John Hiatt.
Suffice it to say, we knew the words to all Hiatt’s songs (or thought we did), but even that was a discovery that weekend. Hiatt crooned about the ‘Perfectly Good Guitar,’ so many rockers chose to smash on-stage.
We debated endlessly whether the lyric to another song was really talking about a ‘Barbie Ferrari.’ (It was!)
Fast forward a few decades to when John Hiatt booked a gig at a local jazz club. It just happened to be on my husband’s birthday, so I snatched up tickets.
The event was downtown, near my husband’s work, so we planned to meet me there. I Uber’d to the venue because I was on crutches. As the Uber pulled up in front of The Dakota, someone opened my door, streetside.
I looked over and there he was, my husband, with the biggest smile on his face. I could tell he had the same anticipatory excitement and flashback happiness I had. He took my hand, guided me out of the car and planted a sweet kiss on me. We might have been on Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis but really, we were back in Franconia, New Hampshire, all those years ago.
There’s science behind it
Like so many of us, we’ve had our share of heartbreak and life challenges these past few years. But we got work at getting up every day, or at least most days, determined to keep working to create a life we love.
But looking forward to that concert, putting thought into my outfit, and meeting my husband at the venue, transported me back to those early, carefree years when we were new.
This ability music has to transport us to a different place in time has a name: “musical nostalgia.” Anyone who’s experienced it knows it has a powerful connection to both memory and emotion.
Hearing a particular song can transport us back in time to a precise moment or experience. And this isn’t just a feeling. Experts say this transporting ability of music is deeply rooted in neuroscience and psychology.
Apparently, music engages us in multiple areas of the brain, including those responsible for emotion, memory, and even physical movement. The brain releases that feel-good chemical, dopamine, and this enhances the vividness and emotional charge of a song. These moments go into the filing cabinet in our brain, and can be accessed every time we hear that same song.
Music has the power to connect us to others
Music certainly connects us to the people we shared the experience with. And this can help rekindle feelings of togetherness. Music can even help us keep a feeling of closeness with those we’ve lost, according to experts, thanks to the powerful memories we shared.
During a break that evening, my husband and I got to talking to the couple seated next to us. The woman was in a brace from neck to hip. She’d apparently slipped getting out of the shower, and fractured her spine. My crutches didn’t seem like much compared to that.
I was almost sorry when Hiatt came back onstage. We’d packed a rich conversation into a few minutes with these complete strangers. Our shared affection for Hiatt’s music (and probably the memories it harkened for all of us), didn’t hurt. And while the woman was in a body brace, her face showed no trace of the pain or travail she’d faced.
So how was the concert
It was great! We did listen to John Hiatt recount the traumatic brain injury he’d suffered a couple of years back, after falling from a hiking trail. It all seemed so strange, this connection we felt. Hiatt’s fall brought back our hike in Franconia all those ago. Even at the time, I’d been awed at the verticality of our ascent, and somewhat frightened by it.
And the woman sitting next to us had suffered my worst nightmare.
Hiatt’s voice lacked a bit of the bass and gravel of the last time we’d seen him. His set was a bit shorter. But he was the same guy, the guy we’d fallen in love listening to on that car ride so many years ago. And here he was, traumatic brain injury and all, still singing, still experiencing, still delighting us and so many others. Clearly, he’d figured it out, too. A broken spine hadn’t stopped the lady next to us. And Hiatt was nowhere near ready to hang it up.
Neither were we.
