5:01 a.m. in the kitchen of 77 Barton Street (18 May 1980)

I enjoy lists. In fact, I literally cannot live my life without them. So I present to you the following:

Top 12 (nerdily specific) musical things I would like to be reincarnated as:

1)      Noel Gallagher’s guitar solo in Oasis’ “Slide Away”

2)      The piano in Joy Division’s “The Eternal”

3)      Liam Gallagher’s shriek during the intro of Oasis’ “Fade In-Out”

4)      Ian Curtis’ voice in Joy Division’s “New Dawn Fades”

5)      Seconds 2:52 – 3:03 in Blur’s “Ambulance”

6)      The drums in “Lucky 13” by the Smashing Pumpkins

7)      Second 4:33 in “Arabatur” by Sigur Ros

8)      The chorus of Sigur Ros’ “Hljomalind”

9)      The final 30 seconds of “Saeglopur” by Sigur Ros

10)   Second 3:35 of “Stellar” by the Smashing Pumpkins

11)   The guitar in John Mayer’s “Something’s Missing”

12)   Peter Hook’s bass guitar

I would honestly just be thrilled with the last one.

All my musical passion resurgence began today at work where I craved Oasis with the pickle and peanut butter intensity of a pregnant woman. I had to have it. NOW. I don’t usually get that way anymore, sadly. I should always feel that way. Listening to the Smashing Pumpkins still makes me feel like home and Blur reminds me of being at the Dover Cliffs in England, playing that song on incessant loop as I scrambled over the landscape. Morrissey and The Smiths saved my life back in 2007 and Sigur Ros still makes me cry. But when’s the last time I felt like that 15 year old who held her breath when pushing play on Be Here Now for the first time?

I miss music. I still listen to it pretty much daily but straining my vocals chords to “Firebomb” by Rihanna on the way to a Redbox just isn’t the same. Today I really felt it again. That energy and numbness that floods in at the same time. Brain-pumping relaxation. I wish there was a way I could transform myself into musical waves, effortlessly floating from one song to another. Take #1 in my list above. I want to exist in the same space and time at the exact moment Noel Gallagher slid his gnarled fingers up and down that guitar neck to record the brilliant solo in “Slide Away”. I want to be it. No physical body, just sound. I want to reverberate from Ian Curtis’ throat as he croaks out the words to “New Dawn Fades”, the desperation and passion in his voice slicing through Bernard Summer’s menacing guitar. I want to be the ferocity and sweat behind Jimmy Chamberlin’s pounding rhythm in “Lucky 13”. Living as second 4:33 of “Arabatur” must be like sitting on God’s knee.

I don’t want to just listen, sing along to or write about music. I want to be music. I want to dissolve into music the way dandelion seeds scatter in the air.