Listening for Adventure Abroad

In the immense lonely expanse of an empty train platform, the song playing through your headphones ends, and you realise the only sound you can hear is that of your footsteps. How fleetingly strange it is, in a populated European city like Paris, where sounds seem constantly unavoidable, to find yourself in this peaceful liminal space. You wonder, what is the music for this moment in space and time? Does Spotify have a playlist for such an occasion? Might it be something like Spiegel im spiegel by Arvo Pärt, the soft violin joining the piano to accompany the tranquillity of the atmosphere? Or does it require something akin to an echoey, eerie version of With or Without You, such as the cover by Hamish Cowan (which I can only find on YouTube but is incredible)? The choice inevitably comes down to your state of mind: whether you want something to complement feelings of nostalgia or loneliness, or if you’re wanting a hype-up song for your main character moment in this dark and isolated station. Maybe you want to be in a dramatic opera, or a cheesy musical, or a choreographed dance break. Music can allow you to be anything, anywhere… until the train comes and drowns everything out.

Last year, Spotify Wrapped bestowed me the title of ‘The Adventurer’. I believe this was earned through my ritual of listening to my Discover Weekly playlist every Monday. These playlists are always an interesting journey – the shuffle may take me from a soulful Norah Jones ballad to a Pirates of the Caribbean remix to a piece of devastatingly angsty soft metal. I’ll only save two or three songs a week, if I’m lucky, but I have found myself a few gems. When my year abroad was confirmed last year, I decided to take the label of The Adventurer in my stride and create a playlist for all the French songs I came across. I titled it: ‘off on an adventure’, and it was accompanied by a cover photo of sheet music with the annotation: ‘gradually becomes a disaster’. While I don’t believe I had necessarily anticipated a perilous emotional rollercoaster of a year abroad – bearing in mind I am writing this one month into being away – part of me must have known it wasn’t going to be a merry-go-round through my ‘happy songs’ playlist. Either way, I knew I was going to be needing music.

While I continued to nourish my eagerness to discover new artists and hidden gems on Spotify, I also found myself wishing to share my music tastes with those around me. Introducing one of my flatmates to the sad gay music of the boygenius album led to her strolling around Paris to the wistful notes of Emily I’m Sorry. On repeat… for days. Emanating from the shower, I would hear: “you know how I get when I’m wrong”; from the kitchen: “I’m 27, and I don’t know who I am”. I thought to myself, what kind of existential crisis have I created for my friend? Tiptoeing into the kitchen, I asked if she’d managed to listen beyond the third track of the album. At the shake of her head, I decided the whimsical evening activity would be a Phoebe Bridgers music video marathon on my mini projector. Unbeknownst to us at the time, another flatmate was having a moment after a tough day of work. She has since relayed how she had been in her own world in her room until she briefly took off her noise-cancelling headphones to reveal the numbing notes of Smoke Signals flowing through the apartment, and swiftly put her headphones back on. We all need different things when we’re dealing with emotions. But you also can’t hide from your feelings in music. If anything, they’ll reveal more of those feelings to you than you had initially thought were there. If you’re walking to your exhausting under-paid internship on an early Thursday morning and it starts to rain, sometimes you just have to whack on some Gregory Alan Isakov and wallow in it for a little bit.

Feeling close to those you love who are far away is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges of the year abroad. At least that’s what I’ve found. Everyone will tell you what an incredible opportunity you’ve been given. And of course, you’ll believe them, because it’s true. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when you feel a little pang of inexplicable hurt. Homesickness, culture shock, emotional exhaustion, witnessing your friends back in college making memories that you simply can’t be a part of. Sometimes you find yourself seeking out the ‘Sad Crying Mix’, wishing you didn’t have to be away on this exciting adventure, but back where you felt safe and in control. You have Taylor Swift singing in your ears, telling you to Come back, be here, as you’re missing someone more than you knew you could miss anything. But music can also help you to step back and find some perspective. Thinking about the people you know through the artists and the songs they love can provide a way to connect with them. There will never be a time when I hear Florence + The Machine’s Free and not think of dancing in a field with my friends. The music acts as a way to feel close to them, when they feel so far away, more than just literally.

Back at the empty train platform, you decide to listen to Mitski’s latest album, The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We. With the swing of the opening chords - D flat major, A flat major, E flat major, B flat major - complementing the gentle rock of the train gliding through the dark tunnels under Paris, you find yourself tearing up when maybe you didn’t even know you were sad. The jump-scare of the secret choir appearing to chant ‘Family’ suddenly makes you aware that you’re farther than you’ve ever had to be from your family - blood or chosen. You increase the volume to an unhealthy level to make the music consume you, to detach yourself from this reality for a brief moment…

And the song ends. You’re still on the train. You’re still far away from that embrace that you’ve been dreaming of. But. You remember that you are an adventurer. And you’re eager to see what awaits you at the next stop.

 All images belong to the author, unless otherwise stated.