I went to see Sarah McLachlan in Irving this weekend with my girlfriend as part of her Better Broken Tour, mostly because I’ve been listening to her since I was a kid and wanted to finally hear those songs live. We had a great night. We sang along, enjoyed the nostalgia, people-watched a little, and did the usual post-concert thing where you’re tired but very glad you went.
Sarah sounded incredible, which was pretty much the only outcome I was willing to accept.
What I didn’t expect was how different some of those songs would feel now.
Sarah McLachlan was part of the soundtrack of my childhood and adolescence. When I first listened to her, I didn’t have much life behind the music. I knew what I liked. I knew which songs I wanted to hear again. I knew when something hit me, even if I couldn’t have explained why.
Now I have a lot more context.
I’ve had relationships, heartbreak, friendships that changed, people who disappeared, jobs, mistakes, good decisions, bad decisions, and enough general life experience to hear certain lyrics differently. So hearing those songs again wasn’t really about going backward. In some ways, it felt like hearing them for the first time.
The Strange Thing About Growing Up With Music
There’s something funny about music you’ve known for most of your life. You can forget how long it’s been with you until you hear it again and realize how much has happened since you first fell in love with it.
A song can bring back a person, an apartment, a summer, a relationship, or some version of yourself you haven’t thought about in years. Sometimes you remember the exact circumstances. Sometimes you just remember the feeling.
The song is the same. I’m the one bringing a completely different life to it now.
That was what I kept noticing during the concert. I knew these songs. I’ve heard them countless times. But I was hearing them from the other side of things I simply hadn’t experienced when I was younger.
A lyric can land differently after you’ve had your heart broken. A song that once sounded dramatic can hit a little closer to home after you’ve spent a few more years figuring out that people are complicated and life rarely behaves the way you thought it would.
You bring your own history to the music.
Seeing Sarah McLachlan Live in Irving
The actual concert was just a really good night. Sarah sounded great, the crowd was into it, and there was something satisfying about finally hearing songs that have been floating around in my life for so long performed right in front of me.
The Irving stop on the Better Broken Tour also featured Allison Russell, and the whole night had that particular concert feeling where you look around and realize everyone there probably has a completely different story attached to the same songs.
My girlfriend and I were mostly just enjoying ourselves. We sang along, laughed, took in the show and enjoyed being there. We didn’t need to turn it into some huge nostalgic event. We wanted to go, so we went.
Sometimes that’s enough.
You Hear It Differently Because You’ve Lived More
I wasn’t sitting there wishing I could be the person I was when I first discovered Sarah McLachlan.
Sure, I liked younger me. She had good taste.
But I also like who I am now, and there’s something pretty cool about revisiting music from your youth after you’ve accumulated a few more years, relationships, mistakes and stories.
You understand yourself differently. You understand other people differently. Things that once felt enormous can become funny stories. Things you once didn’t understand can suddenly make perfect sense.
Sometimes a song hits differently simply because you’ve had more life happen since you first heard it.
It also made me think about something else: buy the concert tickets.
Not recklessly. I’m not suggesting anyone blow their rent money because their favorite band is coming through town. But if there’s an artist you’ve loved for years and you can afford to go, go.
I’ve talked myself out of things before because there would always be another time. Sometimes there is. Sometimes there isn’t.
This time, we bought the tickets, went to the show, sang along to songs I’ve known since I was a kid, and had a really good night.
Honestly, that’s enough of a reason.
Leave a Reply