By MEGHAN QUINN
Guest Columnist
In the first days of the pandemic lockdown in 2020, my sister Emily reached out to our immediate family members with a request – she asked each of all five of us sisters to come up with an individual list of our 10 favorite songs. Her plan was to create a master playlist made up of her children’s favorite people’s favorite songs to use around their home during their days of quarantine, a time that left us all unsure of when we would get to see one another again.
I loved this playlist idea from the moment she mentioned it, but I did not expect it to connect us in the ways that it did in the following days and weeks, as my sister updated our group chat with which songs were her children’s favorites, sharing photos of what activities and silliness they were enjoying while listening, their guesses as to which favorite songs belonged to whom. She shared the resulting playlist with the rest of us, and everyone began listening and enjoying, doing the same. I have long asserted that laughter and music are two of the best ways to connect people, one to another, and this activity for our family proved an excellent example of this.
I come from a large family filled with music and musicians. I can play guitar, bass, saxophone, and piano (all very mediocrely). I grew up singing in choirs and was a singer/guitarist in a local cover band in college. My childhood memories of our family gatherings all include music, of my aunts taking turns playing my grandmother’s baby grand piano while we all sang together during holidays, of all of us going caroling in the small town where we grew up together, of evenings spent with our extended family around campfires while the music of guitar chords filled the crisp fall air with family favorites.
As a result, it should not have come as a surprise how much this musical endeavor at the onset of the pandemic ended up meaning to me. The process of choosing 10 favorite songs proved grueling. My sister refused to accept any more than 10, no matter how insistently we pleaded.
My sister Cameron’s list came first, impeccably organized, as if she had it saved on her phone somewhere in her Notes waiting for this exact request to come at any time. My sister Isabel’s list trickled in, doubled back, changed, argued with itself, and I can’t be sure if it ever really came to full fruition, though I know we ended up with some version of some of her favorite songs. My sister Paige’s list came later, without warning, context, or comment. My sister Emily’s list never came, even though the entire thing was her idea in the first place, and all requests for her to provide a list were met with digital silence.
My list? I sat down and curated it over the course of several hours, editing, changing, rationalizing with myself, before sending a list with a detailed explanation of each choice, explanations I doubt any of my sisters even read but instead probably rolled their eyes at. And if you happen to know us, then all of this will sound as though it went exactly as one would expect it to go.
I am a person who still has my entire historical collection of compact discs alphabetized by genre, all 435 of them, in one of those heavy, gigantic carrying cases from the late 1990s. I have thousands of songs in my digital music database. And I found out in attempting to make a top 10 list that my favorites change and are fluid, according to where I am in my life, what I’m doing, who I am spending time with.
Eventually, I reached out to my own friends and some extended family members for their pandemic song lists, as well. One of them, almost four years later, still has not completed his list, as he sends the songs to me one at a time when he hears them “out in the wild,” as he says. I think he’s made it to six songs so far.
These lists have changed over the years, and people have reached out and updated me with their changes over time. As it turns out, top 10 lists are an excellent and surprisingly intimate glimpse into other people. Additionally, the myriad ways people go about curating and sharing their lists prove interesting, a study into human behavior and thought.
For instance, should you just choose songs that are the ones you purely enjoy listening to? Or should you choose songs that have distinct meanings, tied to a time or place in your life that was important to you? Do you choose songs that make you nostalgic or move you to tears? Or do you choose songs that you love to dance to the most or sing along to in the car? There are so many unexpected variables to consider in this process.
Art and music have always been touchstones for me. And this playlist proved a deep connection to my family, an unexpected and beautiful way we all reached for one another during a troubled time. To this day, the moment I hear the beginning notes of one of my loved ones’ favorite songs, I smile to myself and feel them reaching out across the miles of our busy lives, shortening the distance between us momentarily to say, “I love you with a song.”
You can contact Meghan Quinn at meghanontheporch@gmail.com.
Meghan’s List
“Harmony Hall” by Vampire Weekend
“7” by Prince
“Soul to Squeeze” by Red Hot Chili Peppers
“Still Remains” by Stone Temple Pilots
“Baby, I’m Amazed” by Paul McCartney
“Warm Love” by Van Morrison
“Ants Marching” by Dave Matthews Band
“Avril 14th” by Aphex Twin
“River Flows in You” by Yiruma
“On Eagle’s Wings” by the Vincennes, Indiana retired St. John’s Folk Band