comfort songs

A few months ago, deep in sustained despair for which I could find neither answers nor even good questions, I found something surprising:

a song that could transport me somewhere else completely–

a place unreachable by despair.

—

I listened to “Ghosts that We Knew” hundreds of times.

I couldn’t name this Mumford & Sons song’s magic for me, but I–perpetual, relentless seeker of words–for once didn’t feel much need to name it. Just to keep appreciating it.

I didn’t think of the song as a comfort song. I just … took comfort in it.

Listening to The Lumineers a couple of months ago, I finished one song and went,
“Huh, that feels like ‘Ghosts’ to me. What’s that about?”

I listened to “Gale Song” again. And again. And again.

I didn’t think of the song as a comfort song. I just … took comfort in it.

—

Barely more than a week ago, I listened to my two comforting songs after an overstimulating day in London.

I felt profound calm until a horrifying question dawned on me:

What if these songs stop calming me someday?! What on earth would I do then?!

Compelled to immediately find new calming songs, I wondered: How do I bypass the BS-to-me stuff and get straight to the stuff that hits my heart?

I remembered my twelve-year-old mentioning The Lumineers are on tour. I decided, then, to see who was opening for them: for some shows, a band called “Caamp.”

The first Caamp song I sampled was “Peach Fuzz.” It did nothing for me.

The next song I tried was their “By and By.” I found it pleasing enough that I tested a third Caamp song.

The third song, “All the Debts I Owe,” earned an immediate “hell, yes” from me. I didn’t make it 20 seconds into the song before I was up and moving, clear that I’d already found …

my new comfort song.

—

My eight-year-old also finds my early comfort songs comforting. I was thus excited to share Caamp with him when I returned to the U.S. earlier this week.

“I found two comfort songs from one band! Can you believe it?!” I exclaimed to him.

Far from being excited, he was dismayed.
“Do you even like Mumford & Sons anymore?!” he cried.

Touched by his concern, I said, “Sweetie, it’s OK to like more than one band at a time! I still like Mumford & Sons; ‘Ghosts that We Knew’ is first on my four-song comfort song playlist.”

Mollified, my son agreed to listen to my two new comfort songs.

While he did not adopt them as his own comfort songs,

I delighted in the opportunity to share the joy of my newest comfort songs with him.

—

This early morning,

shuffling through Caamp songs on my noise-canceling headphones as I tap this out on my phone,

I’m grateful for the questions that inspired me to search out new comfort songs;

that I then found not one new comfort song but two;

that, indeed, comfort songs exist,

and that I have the wisdom to know I need not call them anything more magical than “comfort songs”

to bask in the beauteous gifts of their magic.