SoundTrack Your Life

[Music]

the song penny lane by the beatles

do we all know it yeah okay what do you

think of when you hear that song

for me i hear my childhood i hear my mom

playing it in the car and telling me the

back story

i hear my parents telling me they got

engaged on pennylane

i hear them splitting up a couple of

years later

but it’s still my dad’s ringtone for my

mum to this day

that song it means so so much to me

and the fact that someone else can hear

us and not get the same feeling of

nostalgia that i get

intrigues me my interest in this topic

started around early december of last

year when in music class

we watched a documentary which followed

neurodegenerative disease patients

and their journey through musical

education and therapy

there was amazing conclusions from their

studies

such as the fact that socially shared

musical activities

help develop personality skills and

cooperative efforts

and that musical education helps develop

the co

the cognitive effective and psycho

and psychomotor aspects of human

development

now while these drawbacks were amazing

it’s not what stunned me

what stunned me was the personal stories

of these people

people who haven’t been able to

communicate with their family members in

years

come alive at the sound of their

favorite song

my music teacher then asked us to do a

project to make a soundtrack for our

life

this is when i stumbled across penny

lane of course and i was met with the

great wave of nostalgia

i shared my story with my nana about how

finding this song made me feel such

intense feelings

and she shared a story with me a story

of how she was in the kitchen

just there just ironing and keep a

country was on

and a song that she hadn’t heard since

1971 played

she said she was met with just a wave

of this pleasant feeling

of just calm and connectivity with her

younger self

of being 18 just married and moved into

a new house

a connection with her younger self she

couldn’t even remember the name of song

just the feeling gave her

unfortunately later on that december my

other nana passed away

as all funerals are it was a really

really difficult day

inputs of stories from the priest

from her children from her grandchildren

made this image of the life of my nana

rita become clear

to everyone there it was at the

crematorium

when her chosen song played we really

heard her humor and her personality

it was top of the world by the

carpenters

the music it just gave us a piece of her

that the stories while beautiful just

couldn’t it gave us this extra bit

that she was in the room with us

communicating with us

my nana was really fond of an old back

garden sing-song

we’d all be sitting around the table and

my mom

and my nana and maybe my auntie they’d

all sing old songs from the 60s and 70s

all the grandkids would sing what’s on

the radio my nana wouldn’t have a clue

whether we could also sing irish folk

songs

now god forbid we know the words to any

of these songs

but it was just the connectiveness

the the feeling we got

whenever my auntie is in times of

anxiety she sings a song that she hasn’t

heard

since my mom sang it at her junior

infant’s christmas recital

but any time she gets slightly anxious

or troubled

she sings it and it grounds her my mum

and i

in the car whenever we’re going

somewhere like the airport or the

hospital

we sing old christian primary school

hymns

not for any religious reason but because

of the feeling

of the connect and the grounding and the

familiarity of these songs

that bring us together folk songs have

emerged over centuries

as a form of entertainment that could

also be used for education

and it could provide wellsprings of

resilience and rebellion

and sedition for the working class

ballads and broadsides

have helped historians paint an image

of some of society’s most marginalized

because music

is a media that can be spread without

censorship

and passed down through oral hourl

traditions through generations

i’m only 16 and

through listening to music from my

childhood i’ve learned a lot about

myself

and about the people around me so when i

switch on the radio or when i turn on

spotify

i know that i’m building the soundtrack

to what will be the soundtrack of my

teen years

so think back think back to a song that

you had on repeat for months

or a song that your parents played in

the car for years

because making a soundtrack for your

life

it can teach you things about yourself

things that maybe you didn’t know or

didn’t remember

thank you

[Music]

you

[Music]