Lately I’ve been listening to Suleika Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy for the second time — the audio version is even better. On the surface it’s about journaling, but it’s really about noticing. Memory. The small threads that hold a life together. One of the prompts is about music — the songs and bands that take you somewhere, or make you think of someone specific. The timing was perfect because we’d just gone to what we dubbed a Yacht Rock show: Men at Work, Christopher Cross, and Toto.
I’ll be honest — I only knew about three songs from each band. It was a hundred degrees during the day and I was convinced we’d roast. But the sun went down, the weather turned perfect, and then I watched my friend Tricia completely lose her mind in the best possible way. I had no idea she was such a Yacht Rock superfan. She danced. She cried. She knew every word. It was pure joy to witness.
Tricia and her husband Matt have come to shows with us before — mostly Big Head Todd and the Monsters. I love Big Head Todd. The song Circle always makes me think of her Matt. Big Head Todd in general takes me back to high school, to the Fenwick/Riverside crowd, which makes me think of my old friend Liz. The last time I saw her was when Prince died — he reminded me of her and those days, so I reached out. We met for dinner with Melanie. Life happened after that and it was our last real catch-up.
Melanie is a music person to her core. A dancer. A fairy who floats from show to show. She follows Widespread Panic, and to this day I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single song by them. I used to mix them up with Rage Against the Machine, which is so wrong it’s almost funny. Her mom Pam will forever be I Heard It Through the Grapevine, and Strike It Up or anything Technotronic instantly puts me back at her dad’s house in La Grange in the 90s. Some of the best years.
Led Zeppelin is late nights at my dad’s house with my stepsister Crissy, listening to the box set over and over. One night she acted out American Woman by The Guess Who. So random. So funny. These days Beyoncé makes me think of Crissy — when we went to Vegas, she went to the concert and I had no idea she was such a huge fan. The only Vegas show I’ve seen was Shania Twain with Nancy and some work friends. Fine show. Country was never really my thing.
My dad’s thing, though. Classic country all the way. Kenny Rogers will always be him. He leaves the classic country channel on for his dog when he goes out. When I think country, I think Tammy and Terry. Remember When by Alan Jackson is Allison’s song — she introduced it to us. Donna gets full credit for Chris Stapleton’s Starting Over. And He Didn’t Have to Be — that one makes me think of Ken and Matt, both showing up as stepfathers when they didn’t have to.
Grace’s soundtrack starts with Justin Bieber. She was and is a devoted fan. I took her to four concerts. We went to his movie. Now she listens to something I can only describe as rap-adjacent, and honestly she may have come by that honestly. When she was a baby I was obsessed with The Eminem Show. My mom got in the car once, heard it playing, and was appalled. I said she can’t talk yet, she’s not going to repeat it. I was always good at getting a rise out of her.
Speaking of my mom — Barry Manilow will always be hers. She wanted My Way by Sinatra played at her funeral, because she absolutely did everything her way. She also loved I’m On Fire by Springsteen and would sing it around the house. Bruce is basically a religion for the Malek women — my aunts, my cousins, all superfans. One year at Wrigley he brought Eddie Vedder out to sing My Hometown and I genuinely almost lost it.
Pearl Jam is my band. Full stop. I’ve been to several shows — with Amy, with Drew and Zoltan, with Matt. Two stand out. Wrigley, when they opened with Release — one of their best songs, fight me — and it started pouring halfway through. And Moline, where Matt proposed. He was hoping they’d play Release so he could get down on one knee during it. Instead they played the entire No Code album, and the moment came during Off He Goes. We danced to Future Days at our wedding.
Matt is a Deadhead. I was deeply resistant — those live songs feel like they last three days, because they do. But I’ve learned to love them, mostly the studio versions. Any Dead song now makes me think of him, or Drew, or our friend Ben.
And then there are the song triggers. The random ones that hit without warning:
Apple Bottom Jeans — Terry. September — Nancy. Love Man — Ken, dancing and doing his own lyrics. Baby Got Back — Allison, and my cousin Bryon who couldn’t believe Grace was spelling out the words from her car seat on the way to dinner. Tom Petty — Heather. Can’t Feel My Face — her husband Rusty, who requested it for our wedding. INXS — also Rusty. Gloria, both versions — Grandma Gloria, obviously. Mr. Boombastic and Party in the USA — Natalie. Going to California and California Dreamin’ — also Natalie, my California girl. She laughed at me when I took a video in our hot air balloon in Temecula and overlaid it with California Dreamin’. Sometimes I’m like that. She introduced me to B-Side by Leon Bridges and Khruangbin and Harvest Moon by Poolside — I felt genuinely cool coming home from California with new music. Scatman, Safety Dance, Rhythm is a Dancer — those go straight to Cathy.
Bon Jovi is a whole group memory — Terry, Donna, Tammy, Marisa, Megan, or the JJAM crew depending on the year. At least seven concerts between various combinations of us. Guns N’ Roses takes me to Highlands Middle School, where I convinced the girls in my class to do Welcome to the Jungle for our PE routine and played it approximately five hundred times until the teachers wanted to kill me.
And then On the Road Again by Willie Nelson. That’s a core memory. My mom singing it before we took off for the next move — beat-up car, sometimes a U-Haul, sometimes a car with a literal hole in the floorboard. After my parents divorced we moved a lot. I didn’t realize how poor we were because she just made everything feel fine. That was her gift. Maybe that’s where I learned to do the same when it was Grace and me.
I can still see the day my dad dropped me off in Memphis — I’m standing behind a glass door, pounding on it, watching him drive away. I couldn’t have been more than three. I don’t know if it’s a real memory or something I’ve built over the years. But I see it clearly.
Music mostly makes me happy. Sometimes it guts you. But mostly it just connects you to the people and moments that made you who you are.
I remember one night in Drew’s van — just the two of us, going through my iPod until two in the morning, playing only the first three seconds of each song. It was my music and he still beat me. That was a good night.
I love that Matt’s Deadhead tendencies are balanced by a genuine love of 80s ballads. We fight over the speaker constantly and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
There are so many more songs tied to so many more people. I just have to hear them to remember.
I wonder sometimes what songs make people think of me.
🎵 THE SOUNDTRACK 🎵
Down Under — Men at Work / Ride Like the Wind — Christopher Cross / Africa — Toto / Circle — Big Head Todd and the Monsters / I Heard It Through the Grapevine — Marvin Gaye / Strike It Up — Black Box / Pump Up the Jam — Technotronic / American Woman — The Guess Who / I’m On Fire — Bruce Springsteen / My Way — Frank Sinatra / My Hometown — Bruce Springsteen / Release — Pearl Jam / Off He Goes — Pearl Jam / Future Days — Pearl Jam / Low (Apple Bottom Jeans) — Flo Rida / September — Earth Wind & Fire / Love Man — Otis Redding / Baby Got Back — Sir Mix-a-Lot / Free Fallin’ — Tom Petty / Can’t Feel My Face — The Weeknd / Need You Tonight — INXS / Gloria — Laura Branigan & Shadows of Knight / Boombastic — Shaggy / Party in the USA — Miley Cyrus / Going to California — Led Zeppelin / California Dreamin’ — The Mamas & The Papas / B-Side — Leon Bridges & Khruangbin / Harvest Moon — Poolside / Livin’ on a Prayer — Bon Jovi / Welcome to the Jungle — Guns N’ Roses / On the Road Again — Willie Nelson / Purple Rain — Prince / The Gambler — Kenny Rogers / Remember When — Alan Jackson / Starting Over — Chris Stapleton / He Didn’t Have to Be — Brad Paisley / Baby — Justin Bieber / Without Me — Eminem / Copacabana — Barry Manilow / Ripple — Grateful Dead
This Body is Bullshit 
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