Every time I met him, I was over the moon. And we really had this on-again, off-again relationship. And when I was 16, 17, I was dating this guy. You would think I wouldn’t, but I like listening to it still. I still really feel something when I listen to that song. Seven years ago, I didn’t have those words. I find it quite hard to say that when referring to myself. And I realized years later, after talking to people about it, that I didn’t, strictly speaking, consent to what happened.Īnd as much as there is a stigma about cheating and cheaters, there’s as much about being victimized like that, I guess. Working through it, we stayed together, but I really hurt her. And I made a terrible mistake, and I slept with someone else, cheating on my girlfriend. On one of the last weekends, I got just blackout drunk with everyone else. I was listening to that album on repeat that summer. ‘Cause my baby’s sweet as can be, she gives me toothaches just from kissing me. (SINGING) There’s nothing sweeter than my baby. And “Work Song” is this really slow, mournful love song. And I was feeling very sorry for myself because I was away from my girlfriend. And it involved hiking over the mountains and camping in tents. In the summer of 2015, I was working for a volunteer wildlife expedition. “Every step I take, every move I make.” archived recording (puff daddy & faith evans)Įvery single day, every time I pray, I’ll be missing you. archived recording (puff daddy & faith evans)Īs lovesick teenagers, we only cared about the chorus lyrics. And we agreed to play it in our Walkmans every morning at the same time. So my boyfriend made me a tape of “I’ll Be Missing You” by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans. speaker 1Īnd I listened to that song on repeat. I had never felt like this before, that this girl, she liked me for me. And she sent me back a video on Snapchat of her with her wired headphones in the dark like me, nodding along to the whole song. Whenever you hear something and you can’t refuse it, it’s just - ankit (RAPPING) This kind of music, use it, and you get amped to do this. And I said what I was really listening to at the time, which was “Fight Music” by D-12.
And we talked about our friends, our school, our lives. My parents are, as far as I hoped, asleep downstairs. And it was all day pretty much every day for at least a week. We went to different schools in different towns, but she got my Snapchat, and she started snapping me. I am a sophomore at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. And I kept it so close and I still have those shoes. Of course, having no idea how hard and difficult and extremely excruciatingly painful actual heartbreak would be years later, I loved it so much. The immensity of it, even if it was loss and pain, was so deeply alluring to me, and I wanted it so badly. archived recording (the indigo girls)Īnd I start to drown. speakerĪnd then the person is swept away and starts to drown. And there are lyrics about how this love starts like a pinprick to the heart. I wanted something huge and big that would just sweep me out of this tiny, small conservative town that I was in, this love with a woman that would change my life so much. And I wanted so much to be destroyed like that. The song is this whole tortured look back at a love that starts in adolescence. When I was 14, I wrote the lyrics to “Ghost” by The Indigo Girls on my Converse high tops. And before we get to our essay, we want to share a few of your stories about love and music - and feelings, a lot of feelings. “I’ve Got a Feeling” from The Black Eyed Peas. We asked: What’s the song that taught you about love when you were a teen? And so many of you responded. In our first episode of this season, we asked you a question. speaker 9įrom The New York Times, I’m Anna Martin, and this is the Modern Love podcast. I’m calling from Buenos Aires, Argentina. From Nat King Cole to One Direction, these are the songs that filled their adolescent hearts with longing and passion. Transcript Modern Love Podcast: First Love Mixtape, Side B Listeners from around the world shared their teenage anthems.