r/BenignExistence • u/Blueberry__Bubbles • 5d ago

The songs we forget.

I wish I had a list of every song I've ever heard and enjoyed. I wonder how long it would take to reach the end (listening of course). I also wonder how many songs I've forgotten about over the years. Have you ever had that thought?

I think about it every so often when a song comes on over the radio (it's usually Metallica, Pink Floyd or Rush, I've noticed). It's like I completely forget that they exist until that moment and while I'm jamming along, I'm thinking to myself 'I need to listen to these guys more often!' but then I never do.

I feel like I do limit myself these days, getting stuck in the cycle of picking from the same 3 lists, depending on my mood.

My seven year old comes home singing Queen, Papa Roach, Elton John and I love it.

My friends niece has just hit teenage years and is heavy into music these days. It's so surreal hearing her gush over Ozzy, Nirvana, Gorillaz etc. getting to experience these bands for the first time and fall in love with their music. Oh, it takes me back!

Staind was my first music love. Break the Cycle was the first CD I ever bought. It's also one of the handful of albums that I enjoy every single song on it. That band definitely got me through the worst of my teenage angst years.

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u/M_Pfefferi 5d ago

I definitely think about this. There is a song I know was really important to me in the early 2000s. I was very poor, so didn’t buy it. Heard it on the radio often, saw the music video once or twice, and for the life of me I cannot remember it well enough to find it again. sigh

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u/Blueberry__Bubbles 5d ago

Oh no! How frustrating. I have a white whale too. I hope you find it some day. Have you tried asking reddit for help?

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u/M_Pfefferi 5d ago

I did try Reddit, quite some time ago. Maybe I should give it another shot, you never know. 

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u/Blueberry__Bubbles 4d ago

Do you ever use ChatGPT? I bet that would be a good tool to search the web with!

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u/M_Pfefferi 4d ago

Worth a shot, I suppose. 

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u/AlternativeSkirt2826 4d ago

Can you remember any of the lyrics? What genre? Male or female singer? Any detail of the video? And what country were you in when you heard it?

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u/M_Pfefferi 4d ago

I don’t remember specific lyrics any more. It was playing on the radio in the US in the early 2000s so probably a US singer/band. I think it was a male singer, but it could have had both male and female vocals. It was probably ‘alternative rock’ or something similar, because I would have seen the video on MTV or VH1. 

The ‘story’ was about love and loss, or the fear of loss. The one thing I remember very clearly from the video, and the thing I have used to search for this when I’ve tried in the past, was a woman falling backwards into a pond/lake that was on fire while a man or men watched helplessly. 

I would have thought that visual would make it easy to find, but it never turned up anything. 

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u/farting_buffalo 5d ago

On Spotify I have a playlist called everything and every song I look up I put on there so I won’t forget about it.

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u/Blueberry__Bubbles 4d ago

Oh, I like that idea!

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u/Natural-Berryer7 4d ago

What's even crazier is thinking about all the music out there that you've NEVER heard, and how some of that undiscovered music may be your absolute favorite once you hear it!

I'm going through a discovery phase with some less mainstream genres of music and have easily doubled my "favorites" in the past year alone. It feels like I've leveled up somehow, and I hope to keep discovering!

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u/Blueberry__Bubbles 4d ago

I have thought about all the things out there in the world that I'll never experience or learn about in my lifetime but oddly enough, music wasn't part of that thought process. I think because music is in such abundance, I don't think about what I'm missing out on because it's getting played from all directions. If that makes sense.

I love this for you though! What do you generally use to discover new music?

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u/Natural-Berryer7 4d ago

That does make sense. So much we'll never experience that we'll never even know we're missing!

There's an app a friend recommended (If you really want to know the name of it message me, not here to be an advertisement because there is a subscription fee) that has "stations" with all different kinds of EDM/EDM adjacent music to discover. I've found quite a diverse bunch of new favorites and lots of fusion with other musical genres.

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u/Spiritual-Sample4781 4d ago

I think about this! I was singing along with songs at work with different coworkers picking the music each day and one of my coworkers complemented me on how much different music I know after a couple weeks of it. I’ve never thought of myself as having a diverse taste in music, but it would be fascinating to see how many songs I do know! I think that was one of my favorite compliments to receive :).

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u/AlternativeSkirt2826 4d ago

Or the songs that you wouldn't claim to know, but it starts playing and you know 90% of the lyrics. Or is that just me lol