I didn’t know much about LA based electropop group BEGINNERS before I discovered ‘Who Knows.’ It passed me by when it was first released in 2014 on the group’s self-titled debut EP, but I stumbled upon it a couple of years later. Sometimes a song finds us at exactly the right moment and this became my summer anthem in a year when my partner and I made big changes in our lives. We left London, went on an American road trip and I curated playlists filled with upbeat, electronic pop that came to define a personal era of hope, freedom and change.
That summer I put on my headphones and soundtracked our last few months in London and the travels that followed with chart-topping hits from Sia, Calvin Harris and Rihanna, Sigala, Major Lazer, DJ Snake, Jonas Blue, MØ, Zara Larsson and countless others. Listening to those tunes will always immerse me in a city that still holds a piece of my heart, bringing back memories of London's East End and its buzzing markets, the quiet, residential streets of Chelsea and the energy and colour of the West End. I can feel the sun on my face and taste coffee from Square Mile cafés, chilled pints of cider from Soho pubs and crisp glasses of wine from bars tucked away in courtyards and on rooftops.
According to science the music you listen to as a teenager evokes an acute sense of nostalgia when revisited as an adult. As the linked article points out, the music of that tumultuous and formative period of adolescence brings back memories with particular force as it represents a time when many people are working out who they are. By the summer of 2016 my teenage years were long behind me, but as researchers working with time frequently note, the notion that we follow neat, linear trajectories from childhood, to adolescence to adulthood, simply isn’t true for many of us.
The summer when I had the BEGINNERS’ ‘Who Knows’ on repeat marked a moment of upheaval, when I swerved away from one possible future towards something quite different. As such this song—and others I played frequently that year—have the same instantaneous, affective quality as tunes that take me back to my teen and university years. I found letting go of all the things we think that we need to be particularly freeing in the summer I cut my hair, left my job and embarked on a new path. It's a song that represents a time in my life when I learned a lot about myself, when my mind was busy with questions, fears, hopes and dreams about an unknowable future, a mood captured by the energetic beats and catchy choruses of the music I gravitated towards.
'Who Knows' has an immediate, nostalgic pull, giving rise to memories that are as clear as looking through a photo album, which makes listening to it today a very odd experience. The images it evokes capture the very things we can no longer do, such as travelling across continents, taking long, winding drives along coastal paths, spending lazy afternoons in beer gardens and enjoying nights out laughing and dancing with friends.
Despite that disconnect between past memory and present reality, the lyrics still resonate now, in this strange and difficult summer. We each take our own, subjective things from the words in songs and for me, 'Who Knows' serves as a reminder that there are things I can’t control, that all we can do is follow the world as it goes. The future is no clearer now then it was then, but listening to this song assures me that we can figure it out as we go.
In the meantime I’ll be digging out my roller skates, putting on my headphones and dancing to this absolute bop, remembering not to take for granted the brilliant moments this song brings to mind.
SONG: Who Knows
ARTIST: BEGINNERS
ALBUM: BEGINNERS (EP)
YEAR: 2014
The summer when I had the BEGINNERS’ ‘Who Knows’ on repeat marked a moment of upheaval, when I swerved away from one possible future towards something quite different. As such this song—and others I played frequently that year—have the same instantaneous, affective quality as tunes that take me back to my teen and university years. I found letting go of all the things we think that we need to be particularly freeing in the summer I cut my hair, left my job and embarked on a new path. It's a song that represents a time in my life when I learned a lot about myself, when my mind was busy with questions, fears, hopes and dreams about an unknowable future, a mood captured by the energetic beats and catchy choruses of the music I gravitated towards.
'Who Knows' has an immediate, nostalgic pull, giving rise to memories that are as clear as looking through a photo album, which makes listening to it today a very odd experience. The images it evokes capture the very things we can no longer do, such as travelling across continents, taking long, winding drives along coastal paths, spending lazy afternoons in beer gardens and enjoying nights out laughing and dancing with friends.
Despite that disconnect between past memory and present reality, the lyrics still resonate now, in this strange and difficult summer. We each take our own, subjective things from the words in songs and for me, 'Who Knows' serves as a reminder that there are things I can’t control, that all we can do is follow the world as it goes. The future is no clearer now then it was then, but listening to this song assures me that we can figure it out as we go.
In the meantime I’ll be digging out my roller skates, putting on my headphones and dancing to this absolute bop, remembering not to take for granted the brilliant moments this song brings to mind.
SONG: Who Knows
ARTIST: BEGINNERS
ALBUM: BEGINNERS (EP)
YEAR: 2014