Day One: What’s your favourite song?
They call it You Only Live Once, by The Strokes.
There’s plenty of songs that stood as strong contenders for the first day of this challenge, but this one just slightly pipped them to the post. This song came into my life at a very pivotal time, as my journey from adolescence to adulthood arrived at its humble conclusion. Having seen The Strokes at Leeds Festival a year before, I hadn’t really understood how important they’d be in my life, and I’d only heard a couple of songs prior to finding this one.
The first time I heard this song, I knew that I’d just found my own personal national anthem, a song that would remind me about the fickleness of life in itself. We’ll never hold the same perspective over the course of our existence. We won’t always be happy, but we won’t always be sad either. I suppose it’s a lot like what I spoke about in Post Three, in the sense that nobody’s existence is quite like the other. It suits all occasions too, which I think is especially rare for songs. You can jump around your room and sing it at the top of your lungs. It can be the push you need when you’re upset. In fact, if you’re feeling particularly sad, the demo version (called I’ll Try Anything Once) is just as beautiful in its fragility.
It’s a song that’s stayed firmly in my life since about October 2012, and after six years (oh man, I didn’t realise how long ago that was!), the message is still clear to follow. Life is too short to try out every single path, and we’ll sometimes make mistakes. With that said, life has a habit of guiding you to wherever you need to be. As long as you keep your kindness and your sense of self, you’ll end up just fine. Besides, in the midst of that terrible #YOLO craze (remember that?), this was as close as I could really relate to the whole thing.
~Millie~
- (song recommendation is surprisingly easy this week!) The Strokes ~ You Only Live Once and I’ll Try Anything Once.
