Seasonal Music

I realized today that I strongly associate music to seasons, to the point that it seems weird to listen to certain music outside of certain times of the year. That is not to say that I don’t like the music all year round, but somehow the experience is heightened when the season and songs align the way my brain thinks they should.

Now, I’m not talking about how Christmas music fits the winter season and so it would seem off to listen to “Jingle Bells” or “O Christmas Tree” in the middle of summer. Everyone feels that way. The associations I’m talking about are personal, and much more random than that. For instance, I love Motown, but I love it most in the winter. Ryan Adams? Summertime. Rolling Stones? Autumn. New Order? Spring. (And of course, spring never turns into summer unless I listen and dance to certain raps songs unceremoniously ganked from the internet by my friend LT, but I’m sure that she and I are the only ones who understand that.) Sometimes, different albums by the same artist will fall into different seasonal categories. An example: Gulag Okestar by Beirut is decidedly a late-summer/early-fall album for me, but his second album, The Flying Club Cup is a winter album. Even Belle and Sebastian, my favorite band, seems best in the spring and summer. Why am I like this?

I guess the easiest explanation would be to say that I listened to that specific music at that specific time of the year, so of course the two are linked in my mind. Maybe so, but take Belle and Sebastian. I listen to them all year round and my consumption of their music has been fairly steady. Why do I like their songs best in the spring and summer? Also, if I were just mentally cataloguing the music I listen to in terms of the time I listen to it, wouldn’t I associate the music with something more specific than a natural season? In fact, I already do that. I think most people do. Who among us has not said something along the lines of “This song really reminds me of ___________ (insert memorable event)”? Maybe I am just making mental links between the music and the time I listen to it, but on a more general level. I don’t know. But all the seasons of my life are not so memorable that my brain should feel prompted to craft all sorts of associations so that I can remember those seasons later via some sort of sensory recall. Plus, when I hear the music, it’s not like it prompts me to reminisce a lot anyway. It’s more like I hear the music, and I just think that it would be a lot better at some other time of the year.

Brain, you’re so freaking weird sometimes.