Morgan Fratto
Project One: Final
Musically Made
*Titled "Musically Made", this paper shows how certain people have influenced my life with joy, kindness, and love. Explaining the different forms of "Love" is another grouping method I used along with the songs that have made a substantial impact of the development of those relationships.*
**To the right attached to the picture is a document of the paper as well.**
“I’m going home, to a place where I belong, and where your love has always been enough for me.”
In 2008 and again in 2012, I attended a Daughtry concert and, afterwards, met the band. I love almost all of their songs, still to today, but “Home” was the first one that my mom and I bonded over. When we moved from Pensacola, Florida to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, my mom and I would listen to all of our favorite songs in the car, but the one we just kept coming back to each time was “Home”.
Even now, when I come home from college, I play this song and it makes me think that I am that much closer to seeing my mom and being able to hug her again. We text all the time because we both dread being stuck in a phone call when there is only a couple things that need to be said. Even with texting, Facebook posts, and the occasional phone call, it never seems like enough to subside the want of a good hug from her. My mom has stuck by me and helped me to become the woman I am today, a “mini-me” as she likes to call me. This song reminds me that home is not simply just a place, but a feeling that comes from being surrounded by the people that love you the most in the world.
“I don’t want to close my eyes, I don’t want to fall asleep ‘cause I’d miss you baby and I don’t want to miss a thing.”
I was walking into a beautifully lit room with somewhere around forty people dancing in front of the DJ’s set up and I heard this song start to play. I turned to the person holding my hand, my bestfriend, Blake, who is looking at me with the kindest of eyes like I am the most beautiful girl in the world, and even more so at this prom. This song, out of all the slow songs the DJ could have picked from, is what is playing on the speakers around the room. I walked to the left of the dance floor and turned around to face my date as he pulls me toward him so we could dance. In that moment is when this song became “our song”.
Since that time almost two years ago, I am flushed with every wonderful memory that I have of my bestfriend every single time I hear this Aerosmith song, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”. I always wanted to just stop every time Blake and I would go on dates or simply hang out because I wanted to save the moment in my memory so I could go back, cherish it, and remind myself that love is real and that he was my example of that.
Blake and I Skype all the time; I love talking to him and hearing about how his day is and how he’s doing. This man has changed my life in the most wonderful ways; he has opened my eyes to love, kindness, and friendship. While showing me that it is okay to stop and cherish the good times, Blake has also shown me that you need to pay attend to what life is throwing at you because you will not want to miss it. The lyrics in this song remind me that “I don’t want to miss a thing”, which pertains to life in general because it seems like so many life-altering events are happening that you do not want to miss. Miracles, the losses of loved ones, and even true love (if you are like me and believe in that sort of thing) can happen in the blink of an eye.
“No, I don’t want no scrub. A scrub is a guy that can’t get no love from me. Hangin’ out the passenger’s side of his bestfriend’s ride, trying to holla at me."
“No Scrub” by TLC was an iconic song back when it came out, and even more so for me now that it has helped turn a friend into a bestfriend. I met Alyssa in high school during our senior year and we quickly became great friends in the summer. One day, I offered to drive us to get frozen yogurt and I put on this song. After about the first verse, I felt as though our friendship had changed. Ever since that car ride filled with loud singing, wild dance moves, and talking for hours afterward, Alyssa and I have been bestfriends and I try to tell her how much I appreciate her as much as I can by using Instagram as an outlet and by simply telling her. Alyssa has made me more outgoing, helped me to be not as afraid of my feelings, helped me through rough areas in my life and has talked me through all of the problems I have encountered, just as I do for her.
“Don’t Stop Believin’. Hold on to that feelin’. Street lights, people."
And
“It’s time to begin, isn’t it? I get a little bit bigger, but then, I’ll admit, I’m just the same as I was. Now, don’t you understand? That I’m never changing who I am."
These wonderfully written songs, the first “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey, and the second “It’s Time” by Imagine Dragons, are truly inspirational. “Don’t Stop Believin’” has helped me get through some rough times in my life when I believed that I should just give up on my dreams of becoming a teacher and just stay at fast food, or just not do anything in general. When I hear “It’s Time”, I believe that I can do anything I set my mind to and that I can real my goals and dreams, as well. Because of these songs, I am a strong believer in the phrases “it goes on” and “it gets better”. When I first started to believe this notion, I was mourning the loss of my cat, Betsy, who I had known for all of my life. Betsy was less than a year older than I was and had stuck with me through moving three times, boyfriend troubles, friend and family problems, and the losses of loved ones by finding in my room and coming to sit with me while I talked to her or just cried. She died a not even a week before my birthday of my freshman year, and that loss has been the hardest on me so far. Whenever I hear “Don’t Stop Believin’” and “It’s Time”, I think of Betsy and how I have come to terms with her being gone, and I throw my hands up and start to dance because I know that that is how my sweet girl would want me to be: happy. I know now that life does go on and that it does get better, even if it seems like you will live in the darkness forever.
Time to reflect.
Each song that I chose to write about has brought me joy, inspiration, motivation, and love. I have bonded with different people over these songs and have shared experiences that I will always hold with me. For the first section using the song “Home”, I talked about my relationship with my mom and provided pictures I had posted onto Facebook and a snapshot if a conversation we had via texting. In the second section using the song “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”, I talked about my relationship with one of my bestfriends, Blake, and provided a picture that had been posted on Instagram and Facebook and another picture that was a screen shot of a skype call. For my third section using the song “No Scrub”, I talked about my relationship with my second bestfriend, Alyssa, and I provided a couple screenshots of posts I made on Instagram. Finally, for the fourth section using the songs “Don’t Stop Believin’” and “It’s Time”, I talked about my cat, Betsy and provided a picture of her that has been posted on Facebook. Each section identifies to different feelings of “love” that we carry with us: “family love”, “in-love”, “bestfriend love”, “animal love”, and “self-love”. Each section is also marked with at least one form of communication that I used to spread my love to these people and is listed in such a way that I view makes me “me”. That is, my mom makes up the biggest portion of my life, then Blake, Alyssa, Betsy, and then the part that is truly me is last because all of these people have influenced me in some way that there is only a little of what is left of the “me” that I have created myself. Each form of communication I used is also linked to how I communicated the most with those people and how I portrayed my feelings to the world about them.