I first heard about this concept whilst browsing a blog post written by Ben Jones at MIT to the class of 2010. One of the pieces of advice he gave to new freshmen was the following:
In college more than ever before, songs will attach themselves to memories. Every month or two, make a mix CD, mp3 folder, whatever – just make sure you keep copies of these songs. Ten years out, they’ll be as effective as a journal in taking you back to your favorite moments.
So I tried this experiment, and much to my surprise it worked freakishly well.
Depending upon how old you are, think back to about five years ago and try to remember what was going in your life. Chances are that unless something major happened, you won’t be able to do this very well.
But now, if you can remember some songs that you listened to during that period, I can almost guarantee that more and more memories will come flooding in.
In my case, Flo Rida’s “Low” from 2008 brings back largely amusing memories of middle school dances, Calvin Harris’ “Summer” from 2014 reminds me of, unsurprisingly, an amazing summer, and Kanye West’s “Power” recalls the time when soccer played a huge role in my life.
Recently, I’ve been creating Spotify playlists largely aimed at capturing songs every now and then so that I can do just this. Very easy to do, and well worth it.
If you’re interested in the psychology/biology behind this, this article provides a good overview.