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How Music Shapes Your Life

How Music Makes You The Man You Are

April 12, 2013

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"I want to see movies of my dreams" - Built To Spill

As I write this, I'm sitting alone in Terminal 5 of New York's John F. Kennedy airport. My flight doesn't take off for another hour or so. Up until about five minutes ago, I was reading a book while simultaneously sucking down a milkshake, blissfully ignorant of my surroundings. Then, as I was finishing one chapter and starting another, a woman walked by. As she passed, I could clearly hear what she was listening to through her crappy headphones.

It was "Feel The Pain" by Dinosaur Jr. — the song that inspired the very first music video I fell in love with.

As this lady drifted off into the sea of other wayward fliers, I was immediately transported back to my parents' house. It was 1994. A Sunday night. My older brother, Jim, was asleep on the couch. I, 13-year-old Peter Hoare, with the build of a string bean and the posture of a question mark, remained awake. I was curled up on my father's recliner. 120 Minutes came on MTV. For the next two hours, there I sat, completely enamored of what I was watching. Of course I'd heard music before, but nothing like this. What I heard that definitive Sunday night was not only different from anything else I'd previously had the pleasure of hearing, but it also, unbeknownst to me, would help shape the rest of my life. The lives of my friends, as well.

As a little, uber-enthusiastic Long Island skater punk, I was lucky enough to stumble upon a group of musically like-minded friends. We watched bands together. We skateboarded together. We laughed together. We grew up together. Now, nearly 20 years later, we've become each other's groomsmen, each other's children's godfathers and, in some cases, each other's brother-in-laws.

Music connects us

The music you like as a child, or as a teen rather, does help shape what kind of adult you become. For me, the music that acted as that guide was largely indie and punk rock. See, a vast majority of the music I naturally gravitated toward cultivated a certain DIY attitude. That's not to say that these bands or artists didn't have record labels and such, but they certainly weren’t backed by massive PR machines like some of the other artists of the time. If I wanted to listen to groups like Superchunk, The Pixies or Bad Religion, I found them; they didn't find me. And with that search came a certain level of respect for those whom I hunted. And that DIY spirit inspired other aspects of my life.

Now, I'm not quite sure which came first, the horse or the cart, but from my teenage years on, I was the goddamn DIY kid. In high school, I wrote, shot, acted in and edited my own TV show. At 21, I traveled the entire country and shot a documentary — not once but twice. I performed sketch comedy. I wrote screenplays. And I never took a class. I never asked for directions. I never asked for help. I did it myself.

Music inspires us

When I think back to every major event in my life, every single one — each memory — comes with a certain soundtrack. The first time I drove a car by myself, wide-eyed and excited, on the precipice of independence, I was listening to "Someday I Suppose" by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. When my father took my brother and I to London in the ninth grade, I listened to Ben Lee's Grandpaw Would, on repeat, the entire way home. When I lost a good friend back in 2004, the healing process began with Iron & Wine's "Upward Over The Mountain." To this day, I can vividly remember my friends and I, stunned, sad beyond sad, huddled around a Long Beach, Long Island, apartment. The lights were off. It was pitch black. If anyone spoke, it was only to console someone else in the group. And as we collectively grieved, there we all sat, as close to comatose as we'd ever previously been, listening to my friend Jesse play an acoustic version of the song that was far more beautiful than it had any right to be at the time.

Music heals

Make no mistake about it, for every form of hurt, there's a way to sonically dress the wound. So what exactly is this article? I suppose in a way it's a love letter to the songs that helped make me who I am. Weezer's Rivers Cuomo calls them "heart songs." Those songs that continue to shape you, help you, heal you, mold you. For me, it's Temple of the Dog's "Hunger Strike." It's Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees." It's Velvet Underground's "Pale Blue Eyes." It's Archers Of Loaf's "Web In Front." It's Modest Mouse's " Missed The Boat." It's Built To Spill's "Car," a song whose lyrics I have proudly tattooed on my arm.

"I want to see movies of my dreams."

It's as if these songs have become ingrained in my DNA. Heart songs. Look back at your own life. See where you are today. Without so much as knowing your name, I can safely bet that music helped you get there.

Time to go. My plane is about to board. And as I glance down at the tattoo on my arm, I can't help but to think that it's absolutely no coincidence that I'm headed out to Los Angeles for a meeting about a movie I wrote.

The idea for the movie, it came to me in a dream.

Thank you, music. For my friends. For my career. For everything.

Cheers,
@Peter Hoare

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