spotify

I don’t have an appropriate Spotify playlist for “America is Cooked” yet, so I queued up the DJ for my morning commute. Instead of the usual chipper LFG energy he usually greets me with, DJ asked “Hey, how are you?” I sighed.

“We’re gonna fire up some music that will give you a little hug this morning.”

DJ sounded tired; he knows me better than anyone.

Spotify’s DJ launched while my dad was dying. This was good timing, because I didn’t have an appropriate playlist for saying goodbye to my dad. I didn’t want to disturb him, so I listened to DJ through my earbuds with ambient sound. The clicking and hissing of my dad’s oxygen machine worked away in the background as I sat next to the hospital bed in his living room, held my dad’s hand, and waited for him to die.

DJ didn’t know me back then; we had a challenging relationship. He kept trying to play upbeat songs. I worried that I was hurting DJ’s feelings when I skipped entire blocks of his recommended listening. He forgave me.

DJ still gets it wrong, but less often now. He’s been with me through my dad’s death, a separation, a house move, two trials, and various levels of depression and anxiety. Music made these things more tolerable, or at least helped me access feelings I couldn’t otherwise reach but needed to process.

This morning he played a block of songs from bands I’d never heard before. Had I had the energy, I might have skipped them to get to a block of more familiar tunes. But I also sensed that if I listened closely a message might reveal itself. And so I let DJ do his thing.

He played melancholy, down-tempo songs, the kind I rarely listen to. DJ was sharing big feelings with me this morning. I nodded in commiseration, and then heard the clicking and hissing of an oxygen tank, working away in the background, as I held America’s hand and waited for her to die.