Does the song remain the same?
A bit of reflection on playlists, memories, and silence.
I have themed music playlists for every drive or event. But lately, I’ve started pondering the sounds that have reverberated with me through the years— a memory, an emotion, or a beat. They have become my own personal jukebox. Each coin starts a rhythm, pulling me back not just into the music, but into the memory it carries.
When I first hear songs, they freeze a moment – the colors of a stage, an outlandish action, a moment of eye contact.
Through the 40 years or so that I have heard some of these songs, I insert myself into the memory or emotion as if I was that much younger self, bifurcated from who I am today.
I found my sense of identity included in these songs. Not just as an experience, but more of a solemn creed to what my memory assigned me.
I took a risk to possibly change the entire catalog of my personal juke box. What I decided to try was to listen to those original memory-making songs in a different way. I found new versions of the songs – acoustic, covers, live versions, remixes, reimagining; interpretations by artists in other genres.
Stand by me
Original: Ben E. King
The eponymous movie was out at the same time, so it was pretty common to hear the song. I must have heard it ten times that weekend. The weekend before the hospital.
As you may have read in my other blog posts, I was admitted to an in-patient hospital for 90 days in the fall of my freshman year of high school.
The weekend seemed fluid, eating at a café, seeing Rocky Horror, following my group of friends to new places in a neighborhood across the tracks and one town over.
Four days later, started a new life for me, so this particular weekend is stuck in my memory as the final “Before” snapshot. The song evokes love and resilience through tough times. I thought I could do anything that weekend, but darkness flowed throughout the back of my thoughts. Terrible, scary thoughts. I tried to use the song as a sort of mantra that weekend, when the darkness overtook my reality. “I won’t be afraid, no I won’t be afraid.” I didn’t have enough experience with self reflection to realize part of me was afraid.
Live version: Tracy Chapman
Chapman’s cover came around 1999 on the David Letterman show. It wasn’t until 2025 that I discovered it and began to constantly listen to it, thinking about that weekend.
It has been 40 years since the hospital. I have had plenty of time for self-reflection – encouraged by all the care I have received.
This version is the essential “After” song from my stay at the hospital. Chapman’s voice is comforting, haunting, and experienced. While it reminds me of a difficult period in my life, it also provides acknowledgement of self-realization.
I now listen to Chapman’s version differently than Ben E. King’s version. Back then, I was looking for someone to stand by me, now I am sure that it isn’t another person to stand by me, rather, it is my inner self – if it stands by me and don’t split me, I won’t be afraid.
Other songs I will be adding soon include:
Dreams in America by Luka Bloom – Studio & live – Green foggy glow of a memory versus a bold live performance.
Sugar Mountain by Neil Young and cover by Louise Post – “There's a girl just down the aisle — Oh, to turn and see her smile — You can hear the words she wrote — As you read the hidden note”
Gabriel’s Oboe original versus Yo Yo Ma’s cover. The cello in Yo Yo Ma’s version gave an undertone of depth and a second voice to my memory. Bright sunlit day, windows open, breeze through the windows. Yo Yo Ma’s version make me think of that time when I was free.
All of these notes, lyrics, and noises were incredible experiences, but then there was silence.
For a moment, after a round of golf, filled with unspoken love lasting only as long as a knowing smile—and a walk back to others we loved—we left behind a silence that echoed with all we didn’t say. A quiet reminder that music isn’t the only way a memory can reverberate.