I thought I was just sorting music. Turns out I was doing something else entirely.
Why music brings back memories (and what it reveals about you)
After my MacBook Pro was repaired about 10 months ago, it came back with all my playlists… gone.
Everything was still there — just dumped into one enormous, mismatched heap. Like a million socks… none of them matching..
The thought of sorting it all again? Instant overwhelm.
Yes, yes… I could have used my own Overcoming Overwhelm model.
I didn’t.
I procrastinated instead.
The great Playlist Avoidance Project
Then on Monday, while avoiding something else entirely, I accidentally started re-sorting my music.
Once I’d begun, that was it.
One playlist turned into ten. One song turned into twenty.
I was in. Properly in.
It took all day. Then half the night. Then most of Tuesday.
It got personal quickly
It was like opening little time capsules.
The original Melting Pot by Blue Mink took me straight back to being a teenager, trying to fit in and not quite managing it.
The idea that everyone could somehow blend together and belong… felt peculiarly comforting at the time.
The connection between music and memory is well established. Research shows that music is closely tied to emotion and recall, which probably explains why a few seconds of a song can pull you straight back into a moment you thought you’d forgotten.
The songs that stay with us
With a Jamaican father, reggae was always playing.
Bob Marley, Toots and the Maytals, Desmond Dekker.
Dad would dance around the house, singing at full throttle..
We’d join in.
That music doesn’t just remind me of him — it brings him back into the room.
And then, without warning, it can take me somewhere else entirely.
Three Little Birds used to feel light and easy — something Dad would sing without a care in the world.
Then one of my brothers recorded himself singing it for Dad’s funeral.
Neither of us could be there. Covid.
We watched it online instead.
Same song.
Completely different feeling.
And it wasn’t just family memories.
Songs associated with old boyfriends surfaced, bringing a gamut of feelings; affection, grief, fun, excitement, passion (let’s not go there!) Some were “Ah, lovely memory”
Others are more: “What on earth was I thinking?”
There were also those shared moments — like singing American Pie in a packed pub, everyone somehow knowing every word. It felt like community.
And then I pressed play
I couldn’t remember the titles of a lot of the songs — so I had to play them.
And that’s when it really hit.
Within seconds, I wasn’t sorting music anymore — I was back inside the memories and moments those songs belonged to.
Re-experiencing them rather than remembering them.
Which meant a fair amount of dancing round the room… often with Shaggy on my shoulder, giving his own slightly overcommitted performance, especially Dave Dobbyn’s Slice of Heaven or Magic — clearly some things stick, even with a parrot.
The music connected to past versions of me. Sometimes just the first note triggered a remembrance, sometimes it was the singer’s voice that connected me to the feeling.
These experiences were more than nostalgia.
Music brings back more that just memories
It brings back states.
The thinking.
The emotions.
The version of you who lived that moment.
I didn’t just remember events associated with those songs, I relived them.
Music has the power to transport us back in time. To previous identities.
We tend to think our identity is stable
But our playlists quietly prove otherwise.
It’s one of the fastest routes back to an earlier version of yourself — not just the memory, but the state, the thinking, even the decisions you made back then. It’s like time travel with a soundtrack and no warning.
Sorting through my music library turned out to be even more emotional than going through old photos a few months back.
Apparently my ears have a better memory than my eyes.
Some songs felt like home.
Others felt like strangers.
A few made me wonder how I ever thought, felt, or chose the way I did back then.
And that’s the interesting part.
Here’s what’s worth noticing
A few seconds of a song and suddenly… the music brings back memories you weren’t expecting. If a song can pull you back into an old version of yourself that quickly… how often are you doing that without even realising?
Some transitions are easy.
Others… not so much.
But whether we notice it or not, we’re constantly moving between versions of ourselves.
Music just makes it obvious.
The question is… which version of you are you spending most of your time being?
And just as importantly — is that a conscious choice… or something you keep getting pulled back into?
Because most of this doesn’t happen loudly.
It’s subtle. Familiar. Easy to miss.
Until something — a song, a conversation, a moment — makes it obvious.
That’s often where the real change starts.
Not by forcing anything… but by noticing what’s actually going on, and deciding what you want to keep — and what you don’t.
If that’s something you’ve been quietly becoming aware of, you might find the Evolving with Intention sessions useful.
It’s a space to slow things down, make sense of what’s shifting, and choose your next steps more deliberately.
No pressure — just somewhere to explore it properly if you’d like to.
If you relate to this post, please feel to share it with someone else who could use it.
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By the way, listening to Blue Mink’s version of Melting Pot, made me squirm a little! Regardless or the lyrics the intention is even more important today: creating a world where everyone is valued, regardless of race, colour or creed.
I’d love to hear what songs have had the most impact on you. Please let me know in the comments.
Tags: anchoring, Change, Identity, Managing mood and emotions, Self-awareness, Time
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