music I've been listening to recently

    Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell. In 2022, she and Neil Young removed their music to protest the COVID misinformation being spread by the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Although admirable, her decision was very unfortunate for fans of her music like myself. At first I tried listening to her albums on Youtube, but eventually it became too inconvenient and I stopped listening to her music. I also tried listening to covers of her work, but if you’ve ever listened to Joni Mitchell you would know that it’s very difficult to replicate her sound. I do have a number of her records–The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Hejira, and Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm–but they aren’t my favorite of her albums and I don’t always use my record player. 

    Luckily for me, Joni Mitchell’s entire discography returned to Spotify a few weeks ago. After two years without her music, it’s been nice to rediscover my favorite songs of hers. The first song I listened to after discovering her music was back on Spotify was “The Circle Game,” from her 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon. This song is one of my favorites because it’s what turned me into a Joni Mitchell fan. In second grade I had to sing “The Circle Game” with my class, which prompted my dad to introduce me to some of Joni Mitchell’s other famous songs like “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Both Sides Now,” and “A Case of You.” 

    As I listen to Clouds, Blue, and Court and Spark, I remember what drew me to Joni Mitchell when I was little. One of the most impressive things about her as an artist is her incredible vocal range and the control she has over her voice. In “Woodstock,” for example, she hits delicate high notes with apparent ease before returning to a lower register. In addition to her voice, Joni Mitchell’s lyrics make her songs powerful and unique. Songs like “For Free” and “California” engage with the kind of poetic storytelling that’s often characteristic of her songs. Part of the reason I appreciate her music so much is because it tackles more than just love. In “For Free,” she sings about a man who is playing his clarinet in public for free. When she does sing about love, she tends to use interesting analogies and imagery. “River,” for instance, explains her heartbreak in terms of the escape she wishes she could make on a frozen river. 

    Beyond Joni Mitchell, I’ve been listening to a random collection of music. Whenever the seasons change I get the urge to find new music because I get tired of listening to the same songs over and over again. One album I’ve been playing recently is Cuts & Bruises by an Irish indie rock group called Inhaler. Although I wouldn’t say their music is especially groundbreaking, it’s easy to listen to and makes good car music. I’ve also been intermittently listening to an artist called Indigo De Souza. Aside from having really great album art, I like Indigo De Souza because she plays with sounds and layers them in a distinctive way. In a way that is very different from Joni Mitchell, she, too, experiments with her voice by sometimes singing and sometimes sing-shouting. Her music is kind of angsty, but many of her songs (like “Smog” and “You Can Be Mean”) are instrumentally colorful and thus interesting to listen to occasionally. However, I’m not sure I could listen to her music for a long period of time because the dense and vibrant instrumentals can get a little headache inducing. 

my earliest memories of music

    My earliest memories of music are of NPR’s All Things Considered theme song. It’s not a single memory, but rather an era of my childhood where I heard the theme song so often that the music and the memories seem inseparable. In most of my memories of the tune, it’s golden hour and the sun is setting through the windows of my living room. My dad is cooking in the kitchen around the corner, with the radio blasting at top volume. I never listened to the news, but I could always tell when the theme song was about to come on; there was the chatter of the hosts in their news-people voices, then a pause, and then the instrumental would cut through all the noise with its distinctive blare. Sometimes my sister and I would stop what we were doing to hum along. For her that usually meant she would pause practicing piano on our 66 key keyboard and for me that meant I would stop trying to distract her. 

    My sister’s piano playing is another early memory of music that I have. Like most little kids, she had a period of time where she could only play with one finger, and during that time “Hot Cross Buns" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" were familiar sounds. However, my sister eventually graduated from children's songs and advanced to 2010s pop songs. The most memorable of all the pop songs she played was her slow and methodical rendition of “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction. The original version is upbeat and catchy–something that my sister’s version was not. In spite of this, I sang along while she played and together we tried unsuccessfully to teach our dad the lyrics. To this day, whenever my dad hears the song, he triumphs over being able to remember a few lines and insists on rehashing how much and how often my sister loved to play it.   

    At my dad’s request, my sister also learned to play “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” This was the song that my grandfather played for us on his guitar when he came to visit. He kept one of his guitars at our house specifically for moments like these. He would pull it out of its black case, hand decorated with glittery purple stars, and set it on his lap. As he strummed the chords to “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” my sister accompanied him on our plastic keyboard. 

    I, too, played piano, but for some reason I can’t remember playing it myself as well as I can remember my sister playing it. I mostly just turned on the keyboard setting where the keys lit up in patterns so that I could badly tap out “Happy Birthday” or "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.” Instead, I was more interested in learning about pop music. Because NPR was constantly playing in the background, my family rarely listened to music stations, so I mostly learned songs from my sister or my friends. This led to some memorable moments, like the time my sister and I were obsessed with Katy Perry’s “Firework,” but we didn’t know almost any of the words. Regardless, we sang it nonstop which confused our parents and probably drove them slightly insane. Other memorable moments include the time my sister introduced me to Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” and the music video went way over my head, or the time one of my friends tried in vain to teach me the words to “Love Story” by Taylor Swift, but I had never heard it before. Now when I hear any of these songs, I’m reminded of my childhood and of when music was synonymous with a handful of pop songs, “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” and the NPR theme song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkq5CFGOBH4

the joy of thrifting

    

from a recent trip to Boomerangs

    When I was little and needed new clothes my mom took me to one of three places: Goodwill, a second hand children’s clothing store called Fancy Pants, or a regular thrift store called Boomerangs. Usually she took me to Goodwill, specifically the children’s racks in the back. Together we’d walk through the aisles of pinks and purples as well as the blues and greens looking for clothes that my mom thought would 1) fit me and 2) look cute by her standards. She gravitated towards corduroys and embroidered blue jeans, which I hated at the time. She’d compare long sleeves with colorful flowers and patterned hoodies to my arm length and then sometimes placed the items in her cart. Other times she let me wander through the aisles pulling out clothes I liked. I dutifully followed the thrifting rules she had laid out for me. Avoid pants and shirts with text, images, and stains. Instead, look for practicality and quality. Shoes needed to be tried on and run in before they were bought. Although not every trip to Goodwill ended in the checkout line, I enjoyed the process because each time it was new and different, an adventure with countless possibilities. 

    The quality of a used clothing store depends a lot on the number of people who donate to it. So the bigger the city, the better the thrift stores tend to be. I quickly found this out after moving to Champaign and discovering that the Goodwill wasn’t quite as big or limitless as the one I was used to. My disappointing revelation coincided with the end of elementary school and the beginning of middle school. It began to matter to me where I got my clothes, how they looked, and how they were perceived. Rather than representing a place of creativity, thrift stores became places of constraint. The original freedom and excitement of wandering through the aisles was replaced by the frustration that I couldn’t find the perfect pair of skinny jeans. Even arbitrary things about thrift stores started to annoy me. Where it had never bothered me before, I began to strongly dislike the Goodwill perfume that clung to every piece of clothing–even my own when I left the store. For a few years, my discomfort with thrifting and my fear that it was not considered cool led me to avoid both going to Goodwill and talking about going to Goodwill with other people.

    Fortunately, thrift stores are now back in my good graces. Goodwill and other second hand stores like Plato’s Closet are once again full of surprises. My re-acceptance of thrift stores comes partly from the fact that thrifting has become trendy again and now everyone wants to do it, but mostly from the fact that it’s very affordable and each find is unique. I discovered that in order to truly enjoy thrifting, I had to let go of my expectations. Instead of pinning all my hopes on finding something very specific, I found that it always turns out better when I embrace the uncertainty of second hand stores. Sometimes I’ll enter a store looking for jeans or jewelry and end up with a leather bag or a pair of perfect clogs. It’s infinitely more exciting and fun to be surprised by what you don’t expect to come across. Additionally, I learned that confidence is key. My middle school discomfort with thrifting amounted to being worried about what other people would think of it. Only after meeting people who were comfortable with finding all their clothes at second hand stores did I realize that the clothes you wear are what you make of them and not where you get them.