Sandbox

Whether you’re an incoming freshman, looking forward to the beginning of “the best four years of your life” and wondering what it will hold—lots of pseudo-profound talks with people you won’t be friends with a year later, probably—or a rising senior like me, devoting day, night, arm and leg to a job search that is drawing ever nearer, summer is typically not a time for reflection. That’s what the end of the year, when sorority girls say their long teary goodbyes to people they barely know (so long as they’re not those former freshman year friends) is for.

Which is why it’s even weirder that I’ve found myself revisiting some of my freshman year tendencies lately. Not all of them, of course (re: early friends/pseudo-profundity), just the musical ones.

I’ve noticed two trends in particular this summer, the first of which has been a high number of untimely deaths at summer music festivals. Since I didn’t go to summer music festivals, I have to admit that this doesn’t really matter to me. What’s more important is the slew of follow-up albums that many of my favorite bands from freshman year and just before are now putting out—which has led me to revisit the music of my past.

So while many spend their summers looking forward, I’m still stuck looking back and trying to decide if, for me, anything will ever top the Antlers’ Hospice. Or if I still care anywhere near as much as I once did about Justin Vernon’s suddenly everywhere falsetto. Regardless, I’ve been reminded of how music can be not only transportive but also incredibly resilient. Just know that the music you listen to now, unlike a lot of the friends you made freshman year, may eventually come back to find you.