One of the most powerful things about music is that it is the soundtrack of our lives. Fellow music fanatic Sharon Hepworth started a music challenge on Twitter for the month of July. Each day, fans around the world will select a song from their life and describe what it means to us. These are my songs. #SoundtrackToYourLife
Day 30
Hopes and Fears brings me back. A group of friends and I instantly loved this album when it first came out. We heard nothing else like it before. It was a piano-driven form of alternative rock that ascended into ecstasy with these achingly beautiful melodies. What makes “Somewhere Only We Know” more special to me these days is the fact that my oldest son also now loves this song. I will catch him singing it randomly sometimes, ever since that night he and my daughter joined their classmates in singing a beautiful rendition of the song at their spring concert. Their performance brought me right back to that year we first discovered the album.
“Somewhere Only We Know” opens triumphantly and beckons the listener in with those majestic piano chords. The verses start delicately, become more resolute, and intensify further into the chorus. It’s a gorgeous mid-tempo track. I used to wonder why my son loves this song so much compared to many other songs I’ve exposed to him over the years. I think it’s the song’s sense of permanence. Over the last 18 years, the song’s beauty has never faded or become obsolete. If anything, as more generations get to experience it, it has only become more and more beautiful.
“I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin.”