I used to write a series entitled “Random Shuffle.” This is where I’d literally put my entire music collection (all ripped to iTunes), put it on shuffle mode, and then talk about whatever songs came up. Sometimes I’d talk about the music, but mostly I talked about the memories the music brought to mind. It became kind of an emotional journal, a history of my life in music.

I love the way music does that. How a certain song can take you back to a specific moment in your life. It is transportive. I love that sometimes it isn’t a specific memory but a feeling. There are songs that remind me of being sixteen and driving around in my beat-up Plymouth with the windows rolled down and not a care in the world.

I loved writing those posts. I think it’s still some of the best writing I ever did. I often think about starting it again. But the thing is I just don’t listen to music like I once did. I no longer buy an album and listen to it over and over and over again. Those long nights where I’d lie on the floor with my headphones on, letting the music take me far away, never happen anymore.

These days I generally listen to music in my car as I’m riding around for work or at home while I’m cooking dinner. Or in my office while doing some work or playing a game. I hate to say it, but more often than not I’m letting Spotify or Amazon Music, or some other streaming service, pipe in a playlist curated for me off of songs I’ve told it I liked. These things usually aren’t that inventive and rarely play me new music that interests me. And I admit when they do play something I don’t already know, I often skip it.

So now when I put my music on shuffle, it doesn’t bring up any new memories. I haven’t connected to music in the way that I used to. I don’t mean I never listen to anything new or that I haven’t found music I loved recently. But I don’t connect to them in the same way.

Maybe I’m just not having the adventures I used to. Maybe my life is too boring to bring in new memories. It doesn’t help that I now own hundreds of albums that I’ve barely listened to or that my music player is filled up with thousands of live concerts. Shuffle looks a lot different now than it did back then.

But I want to write about music in a meaningful way again. My idea is to do something similar to Random Shuffle but more long-form. With Random Shuffle I usually talked about 4-5 songs; now I want to hit on just one album or one song.

This will still be autobiographical. I’ll still be talking about how the music connected to me on a personal and emotional level. I actually hit on this idea because a friend of mine is doing a list of the best 1,000 albums ever, but in a very personal way. He’s not trying to be objective about it (as if that even exists) but making it very subjective. They are his favorite albums.

I like that. I won’t necessarily only be talking about albums. Sometimes I’ll just talk about one song. And I won’t be counting anything down. They won’t necessarily even be songs/albums that I love. Just ones that I’ve connected to at some point in my life. I suspect they’ll start out more or less chronological, but then we’ll just see where it goes.

The third album by Swedish rock band Europe, The Final Countdown, was the first album I ever owned. I got it on cassette tape. I can’t remember now if I bought it with my own money or I got it for a Christmas or birthday present. I can’t remember much about the album now. I remember I liked it. I know I loved the single “The Final Countdown.” 

I had probably owned some cassette singles before owning this album. I’m quite sure I had some blank tapes that I recorded songs from the radio onto. to tell the truth, I really don’t remember if this was the first album I ever owned. It is the first album I remember owning, so we’ll leave it at that. 

What I do remember is losing it. I took it with me to church one day. This would have been either Sunday night worship or Wednesday night Bible Study. It definitely wasn’t for Sunday morning worship; that would have been uncivilized.  I would have been about ten years old.

I vaguely remember taking the tape out of the case. We probably played it on the way to church, but I would have taken it out before going into the building. I probably did not properly put it back into its case. I liked looking at the liner notes and staring at the pictures.

 When we got home that night, I realized I did not have the tape. I had the cover, but not the tape. I looked everywhere for it. I tore that car apart.  Our best guess at the time was that I had probably laid it on the exterior of the car somewhere. Maybe I put it on the trunk or the hood when I and the boys played around after services. I had a vague notion I may have laid it on the bumper absentmindedly.

I can’t remember now if my parents drove me back to church that night or if they said it was too late and we went the next day. I do remember for weeks after every time we drove to church I’d look out my window hoping I’d see it lying on the side of the road somewhere.

We never did find it.

I was heartbroken.

Years later I remember finding a copy of that album. I think a friend had it or something. I definitely didn’t ever buy it again. This was a CD, and I nostalgically pressed “play” only to discover I didn’t recognize any of the songs. In that memory I loved the entire album, but none of the snippets I played (and I only played snippets; I didn’t have time to play the entire album in that moment) were familiar to me.

It wasn’t until the TV series Arrested Development made “The Final Countdown” popular again that I remembered that song. For me now, that song is a cheesy bit of nostalgia. Something that makes me smile and raise my fists when I hear it, but only if I hear it every once in a while. I had it on one of my Spotify playlists for a while, but that made me hear it too often, and that’s definitely a song you do not need to hear too often.

So this is the type of thing I’ll be doing now. Songs and albums that mean something to me. That provokes memories.  I’d like to say this will become a weekly article. I’d like to say that, but I won’t.  I’ll likely forget to write it fairly regularly, but hopefully it will at least pop up once a month or so.

Encouraging comments will help me keep it up.