Many of us can link a certain album to pivotal moments in our lives. Whether it’s the first record you bought with your own money, the chord you first learnt to play on guitar, the song that soundtracked your first kiss, the album that got you those awkward and painful pubescent years or the one that set off light bulbs in your brain and inspired you to take a big leap of faith into the unknown – music is often the catalyst for change in our lives and can even help shape who we become.
In this series, Music Feeds asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share with us stories about the effect music has had on their lives.
Sam Rasmussen, The Paper Kites — Andy Shauf’s The Party
Dear The Party,
Let’s cut straight to the chase here. You arrived at just the right time. Melancholy, lonely, and insecure. I felt it too. I was searching for my place in the world, and stumbled across you. I think you were doing the same, weren’t you?
You refer to the magician – “A shaky hand without a concrete plan” but then reveal that you are that magician. You share your anxieties about being early to the party. “Can’t they ever show up on time?” and you sit in a crowded room, seemingly invisible, feeling alone, like you don’t belong while some half-wit “spills his guts after a bottle of wine”.
When I met you, I too was that shaky hand without a concrete plan. I had anxieties of my own. “Dance dance to the radio while the devil takes control” Why is it that we are so drawn to escapism? Why is it that the harder life gets, the more we want to retreat? Not understanding that retreating, withdrawing, and numbing is only making it worse.
I’m thankful to say that I managed to find the light, and I have changed. I’m not the person I am when I met you, but I will always hold dear the point in time that you represent. Terrified, confused and self-critical, you personify a vast majority of us millennials, while also posing a timely question: why am I still at the party?
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The Paper Kites’ new album ‘On The Corner Where You Live’ is out Friday, 21st September and you can pre-order it here.
