The first light of the morning sun cuts through the dust on your bedroom window and pierces your bleary, morning eyes, but you’ve been awake for hours. You lie motionless in your bed, eyes trained on the faded rectangle of wall space where you used to keep your favorite poster. Your room is unrecognizable, years of hard work has been packed into cardboard boxes. You take a deep breath. Today is the last day you call this your bedroom. Soon you’ll slap it with the label of “childhood” bedroom, closing the door on it being your space forever. Today you’re jumping ship. You’re embarking on a new voyage and leaving the old world behind. Today you’re leaving town.

Jonathan Richman’s “The Morning of Our Lives” is the war cry of this new dawn. The last morning brings with it a mix of feelings. You’re excited to go, of course. There’s a world just on the horizon and it’s about to be all yours. Richman’s clear declaration of success is the mantra of the new day. The rising sun is a beck and call, and Richman is able to decipher its language into poppy optimism. But the morning isn’t easy. The realization that you’re going for good is hard to swallow. What if this new world isn’t welcoming? What if your childhood bedroom is the last place you’re ever going to call your own? Richman seems to understand this fear too. His song isn’t an anthem to sell out arenas, it’s not that confident. It’s hushed affirmations in the face of the gargantuan unknown. With eyes squeezed shut, Richman tells you, “You’re ok,” and you’re happy to repeat that to yourself. The day to follow will be emotional and difficult, but right now, alone in the room you grew up in, it’s the morning of your life.

Downstairs, the car is already packed. Boxes of you are stuffed into the back of your dad’s truck and he’s in the driver’s seat ready to go. You can’t shake “Seventeen” by Sharon Van Etten out of your head. It’s making you sad, but it feels right. There’s still one thing you have yet to do. You turn to your siblings. They’re dressed in their school uniform, but they skipped first period to say goodbye. Seeing them in the same uniform you used to wear makes Van Etten’s song ring in your ears. They’re just kids, like you used to be. Van Etten’s bitter and loving confusion fills your heart, and you give them a hug. You want to hack off part of your body to leave behind, just so a little part of you can keep an eye on them. Deep down you’re worried for them, you’re afraid that nobody’s going to look out for them like you did. But even deeper down, you know they’ll be ok. They’re just seventeen, you used to be seventeen too.

“138^th Street” by The Walkmen slows down time as you drive down your street. You stare out the window to memorize each little detail of your suburbs. Even as you concentrate, the car is going too fast, and the picture-perfect image of your suburban childhood begins to slip into fuzzy impressions. You blame it on your dad speeding, but even you know he’s purposely going 10 under the limit. The Walkmen’s song views memory through a smudged window. It washes an excited rock song into a weak spectre. It’s a ghost of rock and roll, and turning off your street for the last time, you relate. Behind you, people will grow up. The street will change, and the community will shift, but you’re long gone with only a flickering memory remaining. It will always be a home to you, but you’re no longer a neighbor to them.

As you leave your street, your town blossoms to life. The church, the park, the elementary school, the grocery store that burned down when you were 11. But these aren’t empty monuments, this was your home. “First Night” by The Hold Steady breathes life back into memory with fist pumping energy and the wizened charm of classic rock. You see the swing set where you had your first kiss, the convenience store where you tried your first sip of alcohol. You’re not just passing through; you were this town. You etched your name into its surface, and no matter how much they buff it, they can never erase you. The stop sign you hit when you learned how to drive is still crooked, you and your friends etched your names into a sapling that has since become a forest, the graffiti that taught you how to swear is still fresh behind a mailbox. Like The Hold Steady, you hold each memory and throw it into the world where it sears itself into the fabric of the land. All the love and the heartbreak—you don’t have to take it with you, but it’ll be here when you come back.

You’re approaching the highway, and your heart suddenly twists into a knot. What if you never let go? Will your town forever be a spectre looming over your every move, waiting for you to inevitably fail so it can welcome you back with open arms? Or worse. What if you forget? What if the new world is so intoxicating that your childhood is slowly pushed further back into your mind until it blinks into nothing? You ask your dad. He tells you there’s a middle ground. You’re reminded of “Parallel or Together” by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. As you change and grow, so will your relationship with this town, but it’ll never go away, you’ll forever be bound by a cosmic string. Like Ted Leo’s description of a disintegrating relationship, you and your town will always move parallel. No matter how far you may think you are, your home is closer than you think. You’ll be exhausted and you’ll be nostalgic. Sometimes, it’ll be a shadow and sometimes it’ll be a distant planet. But like it or not, it’s a part of you. Ted Leo’s song closes with defeat, but you see it as acceptance. As your town shrinks in the rain spattered rear window of the car, you realize that your dad is right. You’ll be seeing it again.

Soon, the rhythmic bumps of the highway lull you to sleep. As you shut your eyes, you’re suddenly 20 years into the future. You visit your old town again. They fixed the stop sign, and the old convenience store is a patch of grass now. There’s a lot of old, and there’s a lot of new, and you find yourself standing right in the middle. “Tezeta” by Mulatu Astatke is the soundtrack to this dream. It’s soft and sad, but familiar. You walk through the places you grew up in, passing through walls like a ghost. You feel like a kid again, but you can’t shake the fact that you’re a visitor. The town grew up, and so did you. You sit down on the bench you used to sit on when you waited for the bus. There’s nobody out and the world is eerily still, but the clouds still move across the sky. You remember what “tezeta” means, it’s an Amharic word for nostalgia. Fitting. You remember you’re in a dream, but you choose to not wake up. You allow Astatke’s lullaby to keep you safe in your town. It’s your town and your town only.

But if you know me, you know I won’t close you out on this. When you snap back awake and you stare into that great unknown on the horizon ahead and your surroundings have transformed into a drab slog of grey industrial complexes, I leave you with one final song, “Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts” by Wolf Parade. It’s an exciting and passionate send up to heaven, its garbled vocals and ringing guitars erupting into a symphony of exultation. I can’t see where you’re headed, but I give you this choir of blistering rock and roll because sometimes when you’re flooring the pedal you need a little more than just gas in the tank. So, take all your memories of the old world and light it on fire. Hold your sadness and your hope close to your chest and jump into the cold water, I promise it will be ok. The future is a whirlwind of ups and downs that will toss you like rocks in a landslide, but at least the tunes will be bumping. When you must bid the past adieu, it’s best done with a fireworks show and a bow. So please, turn the volume up as high as it goes and crash into tomorrow with all the thunder and the passion that I know you have. I hope to see you on the other side.

The Tracklist

The Morning of Our Lives – Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers

Seventeen – Sharon Van Etten

138^th Street – The Walkmen

First Night – The Hold Steady

Parallel or Together – Ted Leo and the Pharmacists

Tezeta (Nostalgia) – Mulatu Astatke

Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts – Wolf Parade