If I talk about my music taste with you, it’s already a sign that we’re close. If I share my playlist with you, it must mean that I think we’re going to be friends forever.
Not to sound overdramatic, but when I share my playlists with somebody, I feel as if I’m baring a part of my soul to them. I have not one but several playlists and each one caters to a different facet of me. My playlists truly show the range of my moods, sides of myself that most people don’t usually see. For instance, I have a playlist of songs I only listen to when I’m feeling particularly restless or uneasy.
There’s a friend I only share playlists with. Once when we were at a mutual friend’s birthday party, I was feeling particularly out of place, and it just so happened that this friend was in control of the music for the event. They were playing songs that I listened to and so I struck up a conversation with them about it. Now, we don’t call, we rarely meet, and the only texts exchanged back and forth are links to Spotify playlists and honestly, their friendship is one of the most meaningful in my life as music became our shared bond.
I don’t think it’s so much talking about your music taste with someone else that is intimate; rather, it is sharing a playlist or creating one with them that says the most about your relationship. Music also holds memories, when you share a playlist with someone else or happen to make a new one with them, you are curating a shared experience that is going to be a memory in itself. Every time you go back to that playlist or those songs, you are reminded of your memories with that person. I think that’s what truly makes sharing playlists a profoundly intimate experience. I feel that the intimacy comes from the fact that I’m not particularly obliged to share my playlist with anyone and yet I want to with certain people.
It might be a bit much to pin sentimentality on a song when you’ve only heard it a couple of times. I don’t find myself associating some feeling or the other with every song; however, feelings can be built upon songs listened to often. And when those songs are shared with another individual, it is almost as if I am sharing those feelings with them. It is also here that you realise the sheer sincerity that is behind the simple action of sharing a playlist with another.
This may not be the case for most, but I do believe there is a weird intimacy in sharing playlists with someone. If I could put it in just a sentence, I feel as if I am showing someone just another thing that I find beautiful or amazing and I hope that it prompts within them the same spirit that it prompts within me.