Jennings 1

Chase Jennings

Professor Cassel

ENG 1201-213

6 February 2019

Music Narrative

Lost In Music

I drove down the gray, empty highway with the clouds obscuring the hot sun in the sky.

My music was on, listening to the sad, slow, and melodic songs that I would usually listen to

when I felt down. With tears streaming down my face and the car on cruise mode, I didn’t care.

I have been here before. To this dark place where nothing mattered. I let the music carry me

like the strong wind on a winter night. The car took me where I needed to go.

Flashing back a year ago. I used to live with my father and my sister. They moved out

soon after that. Leaving the middle sized brick house to me, the youngest one in the family. It

was so sudden and abrupt that I was so surprised and speechless the night my father left. That

fateful night that I can still remember vividly in my head. It was 2 am in the morning and it was

snowing heavily outside. I remember my father’s heavy footsteps when I was in my bedroom

still sleeping soundly. He woke me up.

My father opened the door anxiously. The sound of the door slowly squeaking noisily

against the iron grate. He looked at me briefly. His eyes seemed sad and worried. He looked

down at his feet for a brief moment. Then he looked up. With anxiety and sweat beading on his
 Jennings 2

hardened face. His eyes drooped as if he hadn’t slept in a while. His hands held tightly onto the

doorknob as if he was mad at something. Then he slowly but surely said “I’m leaving son.”

I helped carried all his stuff to his white 1999 Toyota Camry. Then I watched as he

departed saying, “Take care son.” His car disappearing into the mist of heavy snow with the

only the red lights staring back at me like a devil’s eyes. I didn’t go back to sleep that night but

had my Lauv’s playlist on full volume playing on my bed. I always listen to music when I feel

depressed. It has always helped me get out of my head. I remember the lyrics of the song “i’m

so tired…” playing and beating against the windows like an anxious mailman knocking on a

door:

“Strangers…killing my lonely nights with strangers.

And when they leave, I go back to our song, I hold on.

Hurts like heaven, lost in the sound.

Buzzcut season like you’re still around.

Can’t unmiss you and I need you now.”

The words were a refuge for me to hide in. I felt safe there. In a way they were like a gentle

mother sheltering me from the darkness. I laid there with my knuckles held tight and my

shoulders tensed. I felt like there was this weight bearing down on my chest now that I could

barely breathe. My mind immediately went to my music. The memory of the pop songs by Lauv

and Starset promised salvation and escape. Lauv a 24 years old artist who sings about breakups

and hardships that come with becoming an adult and the many problems that come with it. I

always felt I could relate to him because of the close in age and the similar lifestyle that he had.
 Jennings 3

Starset was very much different, a rock band who became popular in the mid 2000 that sings

about life hardships and the dark, invisible monsters that lurk in people’s lives threatening to

swallow them whole. Both artists promised a way out. The slow dropping of the sounds and the

enchanting voice of my favorite artists suddenly allowed me to escape into a reality that I did

not know existed. The pain and worries that I had felt minutes ago evaporated like water on a

hot stove.

It was a day after that my sister decided to move out. It was a Monday evening when

she came home. I was sitting lazily on the couch watching the infamous TV show called

Revolution. The sound of heavy raindrops pelting against the window in the living room like the

knock of a thousand hands. My sister came through the front door with rain water dripping off

of her. Her eyes shimmered with worries and her face full of anxiety. I looked at her and lazily

said “You’re home early.” Like it was another casual day and another normal conversation that I

would have with her. Little did I know that it was not. Because it was the last time I would see

her. I remember the thick dark air that I was breathing in threatening to suffocate me when my

sister told me that she was leaving. We were in the kitchen with the backdoor closed. There

were heavy rainfall sound and the occasional flashes of lightning in the background. My sister

leaned against the chair. The wood strained against her weight as if she somehow gained extra

with the burdened news she was carrying with her. Her eyes downcast.

She paced back and forth anxiously, “You have to be an adult now. With me and dad

gone you have to be responsible” she said. She was trying to sound confident but there was

shaking in her voice.

 Jennings 4

I opened my mouth trying to speak, but no words would come out. It was as if my words

were dissipating as soon as they reach the outside like ice melting on a summer morning. My

sister then grabbed her heavy leather suit case and that black Gucci handbag that she always

carried around with her out the door. The thunder struck momentarily and it light up the front

of the door silhouetting her slender form. She looked back at me one last time and I thought I

saw a single teardrop dripping down the right side of her face. Then she closed the door shut.

Things were unimaginably hard after my family left. Every single problem felt like an

forceful punch against my stomach. Taking the breath out of me. The oppressive hand of

responsibility prevented me from feeling the pain the old small problems that I used to have

when I was younger. There are nights when I would take long walks. One of these nights. It was

a Thursday night with the dark streets and the houses suddenly seemed abandoned after 9. Not

a soul on the road. The sidewalks were still glistened with the rainfall from the day. The

moonlight shone confidently brightening the streets in every corner. The buzzing of the flies.

There were occasional sounds of birds chirping and the distant thrumming of cars. But other

than that I was alone with my thoughts. I listened to songs that I had kept for special occasions,

occasions that only the darkest times would I listen to them. The sound of the heavy drums, the

falling of the beats, and the long pauses between melodies. All I had was that. I can recalled the

cold winter night bit my skin and the dark neighborhoods threatened to swallow me, the

memories of my sister and my father leaving made me feel like I’m falling apart. My music

pushed it all away. When I put on my Air Pods it seemed as those there is this guardian

watching over me. Making my worries and problems disappear. Making me feel safe and

secure. The world seemed oblivious to me. I was invisible. Nothing could harm me when that
 Jennings 5

sweet, thrumming sound of the song “Down With The Fallen” was in my ears: “Tired eyes,

barely open/ Crippled by a promise broken.” The words rang clear and crisp in my ears. The

words sweet and radiant. I could connect to it like a long lost friend. It was like a drug. It

promised release and escape.

A year and a half later and I’m still thinking about it. The days when my father was

around to answer my dumb, naïve questions. When he was around to take care of the bills, fix

the toilet, change my tires for me. Now with him gone. I felt like I was exposed to this

dangerous world with so many uncertainties. But my music would promise a temporary refuge

from my monsters. Music also in a way sets me free. There are times when I would burst into

tears listening to songs about sons singing about their long, lost fathers. Lovers losing their love

ones to car accidents. It was a like a way for me to let go.

Times and times again. Music has helped me through my hardest times. When my father

left, I couldn’t imagine how I could have gotten through without the many songs that I listened

to and the illusionary security they provided. That was not the only painful time in my life, but it

was definitely one of the worst.