Maps

It’s frightening to think where I’d be right now without music. I’ve been without a band for far too long and my time lately is too pressed to practice as much as I’d like, but my guitar, my heroes, and all their songs have still managed to be there when I’ve needed them most. I remember the week after my first chemo treatment; I came home from a lousy day at work. I felt fatigued from the drugs, weary from my mind-numbing job, and I knew exactly what I needed. When I got home, I went straight for my amplifier. I turned the volume up as loud I could stand – to hell with my neighbors – and played along to the Ramones until my hands went numb.

Two Ramones died from cancer. As a matter of fact, Joey died of lymphoma. For some reason, it’s sadder knowing that than not knowing exactly how he died. I wish I could repay him because, without songs like the ones he helped create, I’m not sure how I’d make it through my own ordeal with this disease. Whatever. Now my head bangs and my right hand strums harder thinking that Joey’s shouting “Hey ho let’s go!” from his perch in Rock ‘n’ Roll Heaven while I do my best impression of Johnny.

***

The more things I went through this year, the more songs I added to my DO NOT PLAY list. The songs on that list are the ones I love dearly, but can’t listen to because of the memories they conjure and the associations they carry with them. This past weekend, though, as things started to settle for the first time in ages, I found myself able to listen to certain songs on that list again. The memories and associations were still there, but they didn’t come first. That meant that I got to be a fan again.

On Saturday night, I sat down with my notebook and listened to the song “Maps” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs on repeat. I don’t know how long I sat there writing like that; it could have been hours. For so long, that song led me astray whenever I heard it. Gentle, wild, maddeningly beautiful as it is, it was aural hemlock to me for months.

I can’t tell you all the reasons why without revealing certain names and disclosing events that need not be aired right here, but I remember exactly when it started. I was in LA last March. I walked into a tattoo shop on Hollywood Boulevard with my former boss. We were supposed to be on a sales call – the old, fat Jew mini-entrepreneur with his disinterested young Ecuadorian apprentice – but I clocked out the second I entered the shop and heard a familiar voice. It was Karen O, lead vocalist for Yeah Yeah Yeahs, singing more sweetly and with more vulnerability than I’d ever heard from her.

“Wait, they don’t love you like I love you...”

…Was all I heard in front of a gentle rockabilly drum beat and a deceptively unassuming guitar melody. She sang soft and low at first then, all of a sudden, her voice leapt an octave as she began shouting her proclamation from West Village rooftop during a summer storm. She drew blood from my heart with each repetition.

Almost immediately after that, I embarked on a heartbreaking odyssey, and “Maps” was the closing song on the soundtrack. Night after night, I’d drive aimlessly for hours, holding back tears in a green haze as the song blasted from my stereo. In my tortured-euphoric state, I’d ascend along the guitar melody until I reached the cloud from which Karen O sang that hypnotic chorus:

“Wait, they don’t love you like I love you…”

Sometimes it’s impossible to tell whether something is saving or killing you.

This past Saturday was the first time I’ve been able to listen to this song without feeling so pained. Again, I recognized the same things that hurt before, but first I recognized the song’s beauty and power. It was as it should be when you love a song; just me and the band. That tells me things are getting better, and it makes me excited about the possibility of new, better memories and associations I’ll make with songs that I already love and songs I have yet to hear. That’s what is so wonderful about music: It is infinite. You could spend eternity trying to discover all the great things it has to offer, and it is there for every turn and nuance in life.