Driving Music

My cousin recently wrote me about a flashback she had while she was listening to a Sublime song. She said it reminded her of how I would play "Rivers of Babylon" every time I drove her home from school, almost without fail. I was dumbfounded, but it brought up a similar memory of mine of a tape my sister would play when she drove me to school.

While my brother was the epitome of intelligence, I remember my sister representing all that was cool. She had an easy smile, could make friends with anyone in a half hour, and she didn't care about what anybody thought of her (so I thought). My high school identity was more "Rachel's brother" than it was Mark.

But she had some of the most confusing taste in music. In addition to hearing songs from the Beatles, the Doors, and Blind Melon I remember riding to school at a break-neck pace in her blue Topaz listening to Bjork.

Listening to Bjork is the most disconcerting musical experience a high school freshman can have. It rejects normal harmonies and rhythms, and leans heavily on electronica. There is nothing normal in it to cling to. I grew up on music like Michael W. Smith and Weird Al Yankovic, and thought I had really evolved when I bought Alanis Morissette's album. I was wrong.

Bjork was pure chaos. Noise. Until about the 10th time I listened to it. Then it started to infect me like a virus, and before long I was singing "There's more to life than this" to myself.

It affected me, and I'm confident that my sister had no idea how much of an impression that music made on me. That's exactly how I felt when my cousin told me about how distinctly she remembered hearing Sublime while I drove her home.

Weird.