A Conversation on Listening

Emily
Joining me is Fred, Christian, Toni, and Barbara, and we are just gonna go ahead and kick things off and start this conversation. So, what are you all listening to right now? Music, podcasts, meditation apps? The sounds of nature? We want to hear from you!
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Barbara

Right now, I'll go first, we just passed Valentine’s Day, when I usually make my “heartbreak” Valentine’s Day playlist, and it has a lot of different artists, but there’s one specific song that I always come back to by an artist named Carla Morrison. She's a Mexican artist and she has a lot of different genres. She’s more poppy now, but it was more bedroom pop at the beginning and I love this song ‘Dejenme Llorar’ which means let me cry, literally translated, there's a lyric she says ‘dejenme llorar, quiero sacarlo de mi pecho”, which means like let me cry, I wanna get it out of my chest’ Con mi llanto apagar este fuego que arde adentro, so with my crying I just wanna like, put the fire out that I feel inside. Déjenme llorar, quiero despedirme en silencio, so let me cry. I wanna say goodbye in silence. “Hacer mi mente razonar que para esto no hay remedio” the last stanza says ‘to make my mind rational to this there is remedy’ and so when it comes to heartbreak I feel like that is the hardest part to get over, rationalizing that maybe sometimes things just end and going on a journey on mending through those feelings, that’s really powerful to me.
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Emily

Totally and it seems like that lyric or sentiment can be applied to a lot of different types of heartbreak, is that a song that you have used in a lot of different walks of life?

Barbara

Yeah, I first listened to that song in college and back then it wasnt just romantic heartbreak, I went through a process in itself with being in school and not really being recognized as a voice of contribution. I had a weird case in one of the last classes I took in college where a TA actually thought I had plagiarized my thesis because it was ‘too good’ for me to have written it, so that was a really traumatizing experience. Without going into too much detail, this song really got me through it because there is no remedy to what was happening, it was just happening and I wanted to just be by myself, graduate and take space, cuz I was like this is not a good relationship for me right now with school and I need to cry it out, feel my feels, and keep going, so I've been going back to this song again and again and again.

Emily

Thank you so much for sharing that and the vulnerability of that, I know that all the things we listen to can really help to ground us in different situations and get us through different situations and Toni, I know you’ve been listening to not music but to some other things that have been helping you to ground yourself. Do you want to speak a little bit more to that?

Toni

Yeah sure um I was raised in a very musical family, so we were always listening to something, but what I realized in this last year, which has just been so hectic for everybody, was that I needed a place to bring my mind that wasn't a distraction. I needed to focus, and so I was listening to some podcasts and was poking around and I discovered this app, a meditation app, called Insight Timer, and it's just super fascinating. I don't know if anybody’s heard of it. I see some head nods, but it's been kind of amazing because there's just this huge community and it’s all different forms of mediation whether it’s spiritual or secular, whatever it is, there seems to be a place (for it). And I was a pretty artistic, musical, English-majory person, but something about meditation always made me me go like “ugh, no, I can't go there’ and I think part of it is the fear of going inside your own head. So for me it was pretty amazing how stopping and listening to my own breath and my own thoughts and letting them just really turned things into a direction I just didn’t even know I needed or wanted, or whatever it was, so yeah it's been pretty eye opening process over the last few months,

Emily

Yeah that's really cool, I know something that I’ve always struggled with when it comes to starting meditation is this idea that your gonna be good at it or that you should be good at it, and I think that is very prevalent in meditation culture, and the way that it was been commercialized in terms of the different levels of ascension you can reach. Is there anything that you did in kind of starting this process that was helpful to in terms of rooting yourself in a certain place in your house, or what was the thing that was like ‘ok now I feel like I can make this stick and keep up with it’

Toni

You know this is really interesting, I don't know if this is an answer to that question in general, but for me noise cancelling headphones is enough. For a person that has ADHD pretty badly, and this comes along with it, I've never had a problem going into my own bubble, because that's kind of part of it, is that I just zone the heck out away from everyone else, so as long as I put those things on, that part was surprisingly easy, but the thing that was weird is that, and I heard this on one of the podcasts I was listening to about meditation, is that people always say ‘oh no, I can’t do that, my brain won't settle, it won’t settle down’ and the person on the podcast said I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your brain isn't special.’ and that actually spoke to me so I was like ‘ok cool’ and just by like giving me permission to be like ‘just do this thing’ that was the thing that really triggered the ability to do it, it was being told I wasn't special. 

Emily

Totally, I love that. It's like, what do they call us, the Mr. Rogers generations, but no totally it's like serving yourself and actually who you are and your specialness by acknowledging that you aren’t special, it's kind of this weird interchange of these two things and how they can dual serve each other. That's really cool, thank you. 

Toni

I needed to be told I wasn’t special to be able to succeed

Emily

Yeah take care of your special and unique self, I love that. Well I know that Christian and Fred you’re both certainly listening to things. Christian, anything top of mind for you.

Christian

Yeah totally, I'd say just more generally throughout this entire pandemic just missing the feeling of live music and concerts has been something that's been very real for me. And one of the ways I've been coping with that is watching Tiny Desk concerts from home. One in particular for me that's been really impactful has been the Kirk Franklin Tiny Desk from home concert. Kirk Franklin and I go way back, he's been doing gospel music ever since I was 2 or 3 years old, and I also personally grew up singing in the choir and playing music at church as well, so watching that performance has been a return to childhood nostalgia kind of moment for me too.

Emily

I love that, yeah I also watched that performance and was super moved by it and moved by the energy, and can't wait until we can perform music, and go and see music live. Are there any other sorts of gospel groups that you're following right now, or are you connected to a church at this point that is doing any sort of remote or socially distanced performances? 

Christian

Yeah so I’ve got my go to gospel playlist for sure, with some recurring artists that I find myself revisiting tons. One that's come up for me is Fred Hammond, and it's funny him and Kirk had a versus battle within the past year so it's been like ‘hit-hit-hit-hit’ of like all of my childhood experiences, so I would say between those two that’s about 60% of the music I listen to.

Emily

Wow yeah that is awesome, the resiliency of gospel music has so much to offer in general, but also in the time of Covid, this source of light and hope and overcoming, so would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a listen right now to check out that Kirk Franklin performance and well definitely drop a link to that in Slack and share it out with you all if your listening to this or watching this right now. 

Fred, kicking it over to you, what is coursing through the airpods or over ear headphones these days? What are you listening to?

Fred

Yeah I mean a little bit of everything, I think I’ve been revisiting a lot of old comfort artists for lack of a better term. Being a year into the pandemic, I've been trying to balance exploring new things and just being comfortable having go-tos and listening to something I can sing along with, and that’s been comforting, so a lot of Nipsey Hustle lately, you know just cause I think that the pandemic for me at least at first was this scary piece of adjustment that was ‘oh this is gonna be over soon’ and then the recognition that ‘no this is not gonna be over soon’, and all of that was like four or five months, and so now it's the anticipation of going back to normal at the same time trying to reckon with who and what you've become over the last 12 months, which regardless of whether or not you want to recognize that, all of us have changed pretty drastically in the last year because we've just encountered circumstances we never had to before. So yeah just a lot of old artists that I love. Nipsey Hustle. I never stop playing Jhene Aiko. I’m a sucker. Valerie June. Just a lot of other good stuff. 

Emily

Awesome, in kind of revisiting those comfort artists, and I can totally relate, you know it's like, these are like dependable things ‘we can at least count on this Nipsey Hustle album to have not changed. Everything is crazy but I’ve got this’. Is there anything among those artists that has taken on new meaning for you in this time? 

Fred

Yeah definitely. I think particularly with both Jhene and Nipsey, you get a range, a variety of things. And they're both so authentic and genuine within their music, and so it's kind of like every aspect of yourself is sort of spoken to. And the biggest thing, particularly with Nipsey, and I think that is why his appeal was so broad, is that he was speaking about a lot of things that you know as men, as Black men, you're afraid to acknowledge and yet here it is, for lack of a better term, this “gangster rapper” who used to be in gangs acknowledging ‘yeah all my homies is in pain’ you know and a whole lot of other things. And so it's been helpful for me to help genuinely and authentically process where I’ve been from a personal perspective and not hold in those tears, not hold in that pain and not hold in that emptiness. It's been a magical ebb and flow for sure

Emily

Totally, thank you for sharing and it's actually kind of perfect segway into the next question I have for everybody which is -- favorite lyric, something that is really specifically speaking to you right now or has maybe taken on new meaning or something you heard for the first time where like ‘woah, love it, that’s me in a nutshell’.

Toni

I don't mind jumping in because of something that Fred just said around revisiting comfort artists. My favorite artist - not a secret to anyone at GetThru - is Brandi Carlile. She's always my number one. I'm always listening to her and relistening and I think because I’m her number one fan, most people expect me to say some niche song as a favorite lyric, like one that no one has ever heard of.

Emily

Yeah like some deep cut somewhere.

Toni

Yes, and I could come up with like a million lyrics, right? But the one song that always sticks with me is ‘The Story’, which is her most famous song that most people would know her by. And maybe that is kind of sappy or whatever, but to me it's always moved with me in my life, no matter what is going on. And so that kind of goes to what Fred was saying - taking comfort in the familiar and finding different meaning in things. So the line for me that really has always played a big role in my life - and I could try to play it but I think we are going to link these things out - so I'll just read it to everybody is... (not that I don’t have it memorized). It’s the third verse after she rocks the hell out of the song, and then she takes it way down and she says:
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You see the smile that's on my mouth,
It’s hiding the words that don’t come out.
And all of our friends who think that I’m blessed,
They don’t know my head is a mess.
No, they don’t know who I really am and they don’t know what I've been through like you do,
I was made for you

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Which is the refrain throughout the whole song. And for me, it just followed me. The pretty obvious one is that Brandi Carlile is also a queer woman and this idea of walking around with a smile on your face while closeted, that played a huge role in my closeted days, in my coming out days, and then I always attributed this idea of the person that she’s talking to to my partner, who kind of like saved me in a certain part of my life. But then as this year has gone on and I listen to this song - it's me. And it kind of links back to the meditation - I know myself and I know me and I am the story. Anyway, that's kind of my absolute favorite lyric. I will link a clip for everyone to hear it cuz not only is it an amazing lyric, her voice is just like incredible. The stuff she can do where she just sits and hangs on a breaking point where if anybody sings - Emily I know you sing...

Emily

Yeah I think Barbara has been known to sing a little bit too, and Christian too

Toni

Yeah that's what I’m hearing, everybody has their break right? But Brandi Carlile can hang on that break and you don’t know what's gonna happen, it's like a danger zone where you're like “is my voice gonna break and sound like hell?” But her voice never does she just rides it and this song really demonstrates that too.

Emily

Totally, and this might cause some drama between us, I'm not deep in the Brandi World, however that lyric really makes me think about what all of us go through in our lives outside of work and what we have to bring to Zoom calls with clients or with each other, and what it is visible in terms of the smile and what is going on behind so I think it also very profound to the idea of remote work, but also specifically the time of COVID and I’m curious if it is brought up any of that for you in terms of distance from other people in your life and the level of being able to be in touch with them and the challenges that have arisen for a lot of us in that sense?

Toni

Yeah I mean I listen to this song on a weekly basis, I’m not ashamed to say, and this idea of having to show up every day and pretend, well not pretend, but you gotta keep going moving forward one foot after the other and put on a smile. It was also a song that stuck with me after the last four years of like family stuff and having to navigate this difficult thing and relationships that went away because I wasn’t gonna hang out with people whose views were just wrong. So anyway...

Emily

Yeah it is super cool how music has that power to move through different phases of life and has taken on new meaning depending on what is happening in the world around us, so I appreciate you sharing that. Christian, Barbara, Fred, any lyric in particular that's with you right now?

Christian

Yeah in keeping with that whole returning to comfort and comfort artists, I have a comfort movie that I return to quite a bit, it’s called Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and there’s a specific song within that movie called “Pure Imagination.” The lyrics, and I’m gonna pull them up now, I think this is sung right before one of the choruses that this lyric comes up, but it is really beautiful to me it says ‘If you want to view paradise, simply look around a view it, anything you want to, do it, want to change the world there’s nothing to it.’ And I love that lyric, especially these days during the pandemic, so many people are like ‘ugh I can't wait to do xyz after the pandemic’s over’ and that’s great, that's really healthy to have something to look forward to, but there’s also a lot of power in just being completely present in the now and looking around at your present circumstances and pulling joy from that where you can, so that's definitely something I’m trying to meditate more on in 2021 as we navigate hopefully the last wave of this pandemic and sort through all the issues we’ve all been going through collectively.

Emily

Yeah I love that, such an important reminder. It made me literally look out the window and think about the resentment I hold for the world outside when I’m actually in this beautiful place and so blessed to be here. Has that lyric made you realize something in particular in your surroundings that you've found new gratitude for or some experience or something that has come up for you in the time of Covid that you’ve taken to doing that you might not have done? 

Christian

Yeah for sure and just to keep it even GetThru focused the fact that we unseated Trump and played such an important role in that, like I feel like we all should just take a moment to take stock and how important that was for our nation’s history and on top of that flipping the senate, other congressional races that we were a part of. Just really taking a moment to zoom out and appreciate the fact that each of us had a very important role in all of that, and not just kind of like going by and continuing our Zoom calls and emails without really grounding ourselves in that that accomplishment is a really big one.

Emily

Yeah, totally. Barbara, Fred anything on the lyric front you want to share?

Barbara

Yeah I really like what Toni had to say and like how a specific song can take you through a journey kind of. So I have this song, and this artist really, his name is Vico C. He’s Puerto Rican, he’s one of the fathers aka of reggaeton and rap, like spanish rap. And when I was younger my family went through a religious transition and then got to be like really, really religious and conservative at one point. And so like everything sort of became about the devil and if it wasn’t, it was sort of on a test to see how holy is this. But at that time Vico C converted to Christianity and he started openly rapping christian rap, and so my mom took a liking of him and his lyrics, and I remember she was fine with buying me his CDs and me and walkman on the way to the beach or like any moment, just like listening to a lot of his music. And there’s this one song called ‘Los Perros’ or ‘The Dogs’ and particularly the song in itself he makes this metaphor out of nosy people and comparing them to dogs on the street practically. And there’s this lyric I'll never forget it says:

Siempre que comienzas a caminar,
mira como el perro empieza a ladrar
nunca me quieren dejar progresar
pero es tarde ya no me pueden parar.

So that means:
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Every time i get up to walk
Look at how the dog starts to growl
They don't want to see me progress
But it's too late because now they can’t stop me

And the next part of it is like:
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Y qué bochinche tiene su ladrido
no tienen bozal pero no han mordido
por que lo único que saben es hacer ruido
pero tienen rabia y de ellos me cuido.

And it translates to:

What a gossipy tone their growl has
They don’t have a bozal, which is like a covering they put on dogs, a muzzle
But they haven’t bitten anyone because all they care about is making a lot of noise because they have rabies and I am careful of them.’

In that time period there was a lot of things happening in my family and like how we projected ourselves into social spaces was weird. So this song became like an emblem of “stay true to yourself no matter what people say. You know you are gonna come out on the other side, you are gonna keep walking the street no matter who’s growling at you.”

Emily

Totally, and like another example of just like this transcendent idea, because it also makes me think about how if you were listening to that on your WalkMan it was probably before the days of just rampant social media where it’s just become so much each other to yell at and so having this song that is about that idea of resiliency and staying true to yourself, that can ring true from WalkMan up to iPhone or whatever device your using is pretty fun too. Is it still a song you listen to these days as well?

Barbara

I come back to it and to him as an artist a lot. From a nostalgic perspective, but also the rap, the lyrics are just super impactful and again, metaphor after metaphor. And it's just a really interesting song to talk about at different points in your life. Like how something so familial in my childhood taught me very much about the tone of like ‘be yourself, keep going, don’t really pay much attention to the noise’ and how me being a 22 year old still kind of struggling, because yeah social media is a hard world to beat sometimes of just tuning it out and not paying attention to what people are saying or spewing all the time. I recently took a break, I’ve been off, deactivated everything for like the past month and a half, and that tone comes back and when that wheel starts turning I go back to him.

Emily

Yeah and on that same thread I have to imagine that tuning out the noise of social media actually makes listening to other artists and other mediums and yourself a lot more clear and focused, was that the case for you?

Barbara

Yeah for sure, I've been telling people for a little bit that the more the days pass, I find myself coloring, painting, reading poetry, reading more. Listening to music - I’m someone who is constantly listening to music, I make monthly playlists. I make playlists for people. I make themed playlists. Lyrics are something that for me - I write a lot or I used to I guess, and there was this time in my life a couple years back when I felt like my voice was so clear in my writing, but then a period of a lot of change has been happening and a lot of cycles have been breaking or attempting to be broken, but in the meantime of that, I think I lost my writing voice, and I think I’ve been writing to myself and talking to myself through music, through other people's words. And so the way that I’ve seen that and really taken that has helped me not resent writing cuz at one point if you're a writer and you can’t find the words to say what you're feeling you become frustrated and it's hard to be gentle and give yourself grace. But I think music has been that tool and that coping mechanism where I was still talking to myself through other people, through the artists, through the songs. And now that I’ve finally found the words and have come back to writing it's a relationship that I don't want to let go of. 

Emily‍

Totally, that is super powerful, thank you for sharing that. And Fred, I know you write as well and curious in terms of either - you know it doesn't have to be specific lyrics, but anything specifically you have been listening to either within yourself or that you've been writing about that has been sticking with you in this moment

Fred

Yeah, a lot. So I’m actually gonna break a little bit of what we talked about. But definitely I too draw a lot of inspiration from music and just lyrics and the poetry within them. And actually summer of 2017 I lived in Chicago and I think it was one of the most radical summers of my life, it really transformed me from a spiritual perspective, professional so many other things. I like to say it's where I got radicalized to be honest. And one of the people I got to see live was Jamila Woods and I really fell in love with her music and started reading a lot of Eve Ewing and so on and so forth. And she has this lyric in her song ‘Lonely’, from the album HEAVN in 2017- album of the year, underrated and I'm still mad she didn’t get any awards for that -  but it's basically

I put a sun in my lamp
I put a post it note on my mirror
So I might love myself
So I might be enough today

And I think that's just been a constant reminder, not so much from a depressive state, but 2020 was a year of loss, you know, and I think there’s been a lot of encouragement to be like ‘oh if you don't come out of this year with this skill or this side hustle or whatever’ and it's like shut up bro.  You know so many of us lost people, I know I personally did, from folks who have passed away, but also you lost a whole year, you lost a summer of interaction, of family, of getting up with people, of being able to build relationships as deep as you would in normal times. And so what I've been doing in turn is really just listening to myself, and recognizing that I am in a period of grief and mourning and I don't think we think about those things. Like we associate that only with people passing away from the world and what I’m realizing is that when you lose relationships with family members or with friends or romantic ones or whatever, you lose a sense of things that you wanted to do or you planned on doing, those things are worth mourning, they’re worth grieving, and if you don't take the time to do that, it can be relatively detrimental to your emotional being or growth. And so I've been leaning into that. I’ve been leaning into staring down toxic masculinity. I cried for the first time in I don't know how long last Saturday and I’ve just been feeling so much better in the last week. So anyway, music, Jamila Woods and a lot of other people have made me feel comfortable with that. And just really honing in on my emotions and not being trapped in them or holding everything in, but feeling free to express them in a more positive corner.

Emily

Yeah I mean I personally have been brought to tears by that very lyric so I can relate. Jamila writes some powerful stuff. I’m curious if similar to Barbara, in this time of self reflection and taking time to grieve because to your point, the amount of loss we’ve suffered is uncountable in a lot of ways, in terms of friendships that have suffered or communities that you don't have access to because you cant get together in person, I mean there’s just so many different layers to this, if it has brought you back to writing in any way, or if thats something that you’ve actually been like ‘Oh I hear myself and what I’m going through and that’s actually not helpful for me and what I’m going through and I want to take a step back from that’?

Fred

Yeah I actually have really rediscovered writing and the process of writing. Randomly I put out a book late last year and since then I’ve been writing when things pop up whether it's poetry, blog posts, articles, whatever. And in a way it's been therapeutic, more therapeutic than therapy. When you create something out of nothing, I don’t know if there is anything more powerful or reassuring than that. So every time I start with a word document that's blank and end with something I’ve created, there’s a sense of satisfaction, like I accomplished something today, I can go out into this world. So that's a long answer to yes, I’ve been writing more. 

Emily

Awesome. Well I hope we will get to see work from all of our resident writers in the house at some point soon. On kind of a - well not really a similar vein - but it will help us segue into our next question here is - when things get written down they get committed to memory, but there are all sorts of things that can trigger a memory response within us, whether they be written word, or a smell, or a person, or a sound. And so I’m curious if y’all have anything to share on something that when you listen to it, whether it is a song or a book, that brings up a specific memory for you, what those memories are and what it brings up for you? Anyone can jump in here, open call.

Toni 

I can go, unless anyone else is burning to talk. At first I was gonna talk about something specific to my grandparents. They always had a very healthy collection of big band 1940s music, they were of that generation - so I really loved that. But listening to you describe this idea of memories and sound memories, it actually made me realize that the sound of certain birds, and this is like the oldest old person thing to do, but I never realized it. I lived out west for a while - the sounds of different places are very different, and I didn’t realize that until I came home and I was sitting outside (I live on the East Coast now for those who don’t know that and are listening to this), I was sitting outside and certain choruses of birds, combinations of birds that don’t exist in Oregon started chirping, and it was spring, and it just flooded me back to being with my grandparents in their house (we used to live with them). And that certain memory, it felt like my grandfather was sitting next to me, it was crazy. So I've kind of gone on a tangent from where I started but it was the same thing - it doesn't have to be music. You don’t even realize that the sounds around you could be really specific to a place. LIke nothing sounds like the Northeast, i’m guessing. Like in my experience, cuz all the pieces to the chords of nature are different. And so yeah they had robins in Oregon but they weren’t singing with cardinals and chickadees and stuff we have, so that choir to remind me of my grandfather and was just really powerful.

Emily

Yeah such a unique auditory experience. Really, really cool.

Barbara

For me it's reggaeton aways, like latin music, there’s nothing like it. And it makes me go back to memories, places, people, I don’t know, embedded in my culture is very much just remembering the family parties and if not the family parties, the parties with friends and celebration. So Bad Bunny is my favorite artist and everyone who actually knows me is probably tired of hearing about it, but I don't know there’s something about the lyrics and the bumping that is just immaculate. So I always go through that, especially when I’m really homesick. Even through my depression I can just kick back into reggaeton or a playlist, or salsa, I can just listen to salsa all day while cleaning on Saturday and it just feels like not a day has passed, even though a lot of days have. Especially through the pandemic I don't think I foresee going home for a really long time and thats been really hard for me to process, because there's family tied to that, and like Fred was saying, we’re mourning a lot of things, and it's really exhausting to keep thinking and processing time as well. 

Emily

Yeah totally. Do you remember or have a standout moment of the first time you really connected with a Bad Bunny song?

Barbara

Yes and this is a hilarious moment. I had listened to his music from clubbing and just following reggaetoneros, but there's this one moment where I got the car I have now, and that weekend, I got it on a Friday, and I hung out with a friend, she’s from Nicaragua and she’s super funny. And we both went out, like estrenando - the come out of the new car, we’re together - and she was actually leaving for the Peace Corps to the Philippines a few weeks after. So we went to this party that's a community party called El Perreo, it was like a very small, communal queer space, and then it blew up and just became the Latinx party in Miami. But it literally just used to be in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere, in Wynwood or Little Haiti, and so we went and I remember that she put on the song ‘Caro’, which means expensive, by Bad Bunny and she just started dancing in my car in a way that I have never seen someone of that stature, she’s pretty short, just dance and go off. And I remember that moment every time I play that song, I’m like ‘this is where it started.’

Emily

I love that

Barbara

It was like a baptism.

Emily

That’s great. Anybody else have a memory that comes up? 

Christian

Yeah so for me, my memories are pretty much tied to a specific genre. I’m not sure if this is an actual genre but its called Quiet Storm, but I grew up on old 80s concert tapes, so like Shaday and Luther Vandross, and I specifically remember coming home from school in the car every evening, and my dad playing this Quiet Storm radio station, and Anita Baker would be on there, and like I said Shaday is another prime recurring artist on there. And over time I just began to learn all of those lyrics and sing them word for word. So if you can picture it, I was 8, 9 years old singing about heartbreak and people leaving me, and life just going so terribly. And you would have thought I got my heart broken the way I would sing those songs. So now even today as I hear Quiet Storm and those artists, I definitely think back to those car rides back in the day. 

Emily

That’s super fun. I've never heard of it referred to as that genre, so I’m definitely going to do some Googling after this based off the artists that you named. Are your parents musical? Or did they just love to play music for you and that was an undercurrent in the house? 

Christian

Yeah so my parents were really into listening to music, it's more so my siblings and myself that are the musical instrument playing types. So I grew up playing saxophone and guitar and piano. And my older brother played saxophone as well, and my little brother played the violin. So if you can imagine that household was pretty intense with practicing and squeaky clarinets and violins and all that. So they definitely bared us practicing all that music for sure.

Emily

Favorite saxophone player? 

Christian

Bird. Charlie Parker. 

Emily

Word. More links to drop in the follow up to this conversation. Big time listening party about to happen, Fred? 

Fred

What I found myself doing during the last year, it came out of nowhere especially working from home, and being home all the time, I get great memories from 70s and 80s tv shows because it takes me back to a much simpler time. I’m not that old but it takes me back to summers at my grandmother’s house and back to a time to where life was a whole lot more basic to be honest. I look back at it now and we didn’t have a whole lot of money or material possessions or whatever, but life was way more simple and we were all way more happy. So I'll play Mary Tyler Moore In the background, or I'll watch it before I go to sleep and like I'll start Saturday mornings with it even I’m walking around because the effects and Valerie Harper’s voice just makes me feel more calm. Matlock, Walker Texas Ranger, Grandma got me right. So Ill just put those on and just clean the house or whatever

Emily

Ugh yeah I feel that, just the things that become the soundtrack of your day to day, and the familiarity of having it play in the background of your life. 

Fred

Absolutely, problems going at 1995 vs 2021, I didn’t have a lot of problems in 95.

Emily

Toni was there something you were gonna add?

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Toni

No, just hearing Mary Tyler Moore is such a memory for me, I don’t know if you remember Nick and Night where they would have Mary Mondays and Lucy Tuesdays? I lived for that in the summer. It was the best, Mary Tyler Moore is one of my absolute favorite shows

Fred

The entire series is on Hulu

Toni

Oh yeah! I actually own it on DVD because I’m that big of a nerd but that would probably be easier. I thought I heard you say Lou Grant, and went with that in my mind because Ed Asner is just brilliant on that show. 

Emily

This feels like a very meta way to end our conversation because when Bre and I were actually talking about what sort of intro screen we might want to do for these conversations moving forward, we thought it might be fun to do some sort of vintage inspired typography and literally one of the references I pulled was the Mary Tyler Moore show. And I think honestly y’all it feels like a really good bookend. Really appreciate all of taking the time to chat and share what you’ve been listening to in many forms. Again, we are going to be sharing out a playlist and some other resources of a bunch of things we’ve talked about so that everyone can get a sense for the things we discussed, so thanks y’all!

Playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2AxaQrT2khJMC74yFxYYwZ?si=_7QFgkSZRXSjKLrkj47gTA