Torrance High Music Mondays are great, but what about the music we listen to everyday? Music, to me, is a way to feel and see who you are. There’s this song called Freaks, by Surf Curse, that I found freshman year. That song saved me. I played that song over and over. It reminds me of the memories you make during high school and the struggle of being tied between a kid and teenager. The song feels sentimental, painful, and happy at the same time. Sometimes songs like that hurt you in ways you can’t explain because it’s what you felt your whole life and you finally feel seen. “Don’t Cry, I Am Just A Freak!” I saw the band live on December 17th 2022 with my brother. Hearing Freaks live was the best thing I ever experienced. I could feel the emotion and the feeling in the lead singer’s voice, Nick Rattigan. I never felt so alive. I got to scream my favorite song of all time with Nick and with the band Surf Curse.
For me, music is a way to escape. Sometimes we have the need to be somewhere that doesn’t exist. I feel heart to heart with music. I feel passionate about so many songs and love to explain how I relate to them. I love talking about different lyrics of songs and how important they are. I love explaining to people how I connect with music, along with the feeling that I’m not the only one who experiences certain emotions to a song.
One of the teachers from Torrance High, Ms. Wall, says music has the power to connect with people, a universal language of all sorts. Music can evoke strong emotions and powerful memories. With so many genres there is a beat out there for everyone. Music unites and connects people together. It is really beautiful the power that music has. Music also helps reduce stress, lifts up your spirits, strengthens your memory, and improves learning skills.
Torrance High Senior Student Cami Cammeressi also adds that, “Music has feeling, and whatever you feel you can connect to the lyrics or rhythm to a song and share it with others while you’re experiencing good or hard times. She also states that, “Life without music would be boring.” I feel like a lot of people would find life to be boring without music, as it connects to our souls in a beautiful way.
Music connects to all kinds of people regardless of different genres or the artist they listen to. We look up to certain artists because we relate to their music and it’s great to feel seen, heard, and appreciated by someone that wrote from their own life to connect with ours. The beat, lyrics, and melody of a song are all so powerful. It can grant us the perseverance to get through whatever we’re going through, making listeners feel whole again when everything seems like it’s falling apart. Music is a way to cope and understand yourself when everything and everyone around you doesn’t.
Another teacher from Torrance High, Ms. Jensen, explains that music can help you express yourself in a very particular way only the person listening to the music experiences. She elaborates that music can connect with people in various ways while containing different meanings all things at once. You can learn alot about a person’s interests, culture, background, and what makes them unique by the music they listen to. Music brings people together when we support our favorite musicians or genres, finding commonalities and bonds with other people who love music as much as we do.
Music makes us who we are. Everything and everyone will become memories, so it’s important to appreciate what is all around us and how it guides us to our next chapters of life. Every story will end, but when the story is still being told, you should hold onto it before it ends. People will change, and sometimes when things change it can change you. We can always wish for some things to never change or to remain the same, but it’s not realistic. The music holds those memories when you think of a place, person, or anything that really meant a lot to you.
The memories you make during your whole life transform you into the person you are. While in high school some songs can take you back to how it felt to be a freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior. Every song we love is like a time machine, and when we go back it unlocks something in us that we have forgotten or used to know. It builds us into the person we are today. Music can trigger feelings of nostalgia that can feel bittersweet. It can feel so painful and happy that you wish you didn’t hear that certain song with those lyrics. Nevertheless, we keep them with us, and carry those songs with everything we go through in life. It becomes a part of us, and we can’t get rid of it because they live within us. Music will live on, as we die with the memories we made because that’s all we have in the end.
