The things we hear through music that we don't know

Weird bit of a title; bare with me.

I'm a big "lyric guy" when it comes to music. The messages artist put into the song, even if I'm interpreting it my own way, mean something. in the moment; over the years; whatever. Lyrics matter.

(which as an aside is fun, because I'm also a big fan of electronic music with _zero_ lyrics. Hilarious.)

The odd thing about how much importance I place in lyrics is that I often Do Not Register the lyrics of a song I like. Not immediately or even over a period of years. But at the same time there are tracks I can sing along to verbatim, pitch and all, that I haven't heard in decades.

The point being that I'll hook onto a song sometimes, not knowing what the hell the artist is saying. I'll just know. No Idea what they're singing. No idea what the words are. But it still hits. And that's beautiful, because the song is more than the lyrics. The lyrics are just a part. The sounds so strong a part of the song that I can feel what's being said. I don't think I'm alone here with this crew.

I was reminded of this while listening to a track by 'iamamiwhoami' called 'idle talk'. This song broke me a while back. Not on first listen, not on third. But the moment hit, and it was everything. Music heals - sometimes in mysterious ways.

In January of 2020, at the cusp of middle age, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. If you don't know what that means, it's an auto-immune disease. It has nothing to do with what you eat, how much you exercise, or how much weight you have. I was an extremely physically active 130 lb, 5'9" stick. Didn't matter. My pancreas nope'd out and now I had to learn the mysteries of insulin. There's a joke among insulin dependent diabetics; goes something like this: Too much insulin will kill you. Not enough insulin will kill you. So you ask your body, how much insulin do you need!? And your body responds, "It's a secret."

Hilarious. Y'know, when your life depends on guessing the correct amount of insulin you need at every moment of every day. Anyway.

Deep into late 2020, I popped on the iamamiwhoami's album, and this track comes on - and it destroys me. I don't know (consciously) what's being said, or why, but looking up the lyrics now, it's a song about loss and grief. For me, it was grief of a life once lived, no longer possible. For the lyrics proper, it was a relationship with another. Past self vs. another. Similar loss, similar sentiment. It expressed the feeling I didn't know I was feeling at the time I was feeling it, deep down inside. Didn't know I needed to hear that song. But it's exactly what I was feeling, several months in to a dramatic life change amongst a pandemic that isolated the world.

Cool. Now that I've set an unreasonable bar, what tracks have resonated with you *before you know what the lyrics were* that totally matched the sentiment of the lyrics? What was the situation? Did you recognize the lyrics as they happened or was it only after the fact like me?

No judgement on significance or importance of the song. I'd love to hear about stupid little coincidences just as much as significant events. Y'all are counted amongst my friends for being here and being a part of this small community.

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