Remembering the Good Times
Rhian Hutchings shares the music that reminds her of life outside lockdown.
The outstretched evenings of last summer can be captured in a favourite album, the sighs of a beach side breeze encompassed in a playlist and that sense of freedom in one song. I’ve found looking through my old playlists like looking through old photo albums. There are some songs that make you cringe, some songs that summon those butterflies you thought only existed in the past where a certain beat can instantly take you right back to better days. These are a few of the songs that take me back, the songs that allow me to remember some of my favourite pre-lockdown memories without leaving my bedroom.
The outstretched evenings of last summer can be captured in a favourite album, the sighs of a beach side breeze encompassed in a playlist and that sense of freedom in one song.
Jason Mraz – I’m Yours
The unmistakable acoustic guitar, laid-back beat and breezy lyrics of this song have been the soundtrack to my most care-free moments. It celebrates freedom and erasing the unnecessary complications we all get weighed down by. Even though the line ‘’damn you’re free” is slightly ironic in lockdown, the song radiates freedom, open spaces and ice cream in the park. It’s everything from reading by the pool to sing-alongs with my sister, long car journeys to lazy Sundays. Whenever lockdown leaves me craving space, I can rewind to an abundance of it just by turning this song up.
Paolo Nutini – Simple Things
It was the middle of June 2015 and my school friends and I were all sat on the grass listening to Paolo Nutini. It was the post-exams summer of beach trips and Kopparberg cider. Paolo Nutini was playing at our local park and September was etched into the distant future. ‘Simple Things’ is a slow summer evening or a lazy afternoon in a song. The remedial words remind us of simpler times, the fizzing impatience of three months of summer ahead. Sat in the garden on a lockdown evening, a cold drink in hand, I cling on to the hopefully not too distant future where I’ll be sat on the grass with my friends listening to Paolo again.
The Wombats – Your Body Is A Weapon
I’m sat before a night out, a glass of wine in hand desperately trying to choose a top or a pair of jeans. This song encapsulates anticipation and that distinction between the normality of daytime and excitement of evening plans. Even though these days the only getting ready that’s happening is before a Zoom call, listening to this song in my bedroom is still one of the best substitutes for the real thing. It reminds me of wearing that top, going to the Impy or the Chev where the hours that separate you from lectures and seminars are endless.
Catfish and the Bottlemen – 7
This song was the theme tune of a summer for me. My teenage angst remedied by a single album, this being my favourite song. It is one of the first songs I played whilst driving by myself after passing my test. The windows down, the volume unnecessarily loud and that indescribable sense of being able to go wherever I wanted to. Even though we’re confined to our homes now, listening to this song takes me back to my first drive to the beach – still in our school jumpers, all piled into the car with the volume turned up.
These are the songs that take me back, back to better days where I knew what day of the week it was, and I could remember life beyond the boundaries of the garden fence. Just by putting my headphones on I can replace the what ifs with the remember whens.
