The first time I hear “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters, I’m in the middle of an hour-long bus drive headed back home. It’s nearly empty at this time of night; the only passenger besides me and Jonah is a sleeping man in the back, so knocked out that even the blare of a passing car horn can’t wake him up. The bus driver stares ahead into the darkness, absorbed in whatever noise is coming out of his tinny radio. We have the bus to ourselves.

The two of us make small talk, but there isn’t much to say at first. We aren’t particularly close, just two mutuals in a group that had slowly accumulated friends of friends over many months, slowly reaching a critical mass. I do a little exercise in my head, calculating the degrees of separation between us. He knew Timothy, who knew Jin, who knew me. Four nodes to zig-zag through, to connect from dot to dot with a pencil, close enough that I can call him a friend (or say that I’m friendly), distant enough that I don’t even know his last name. I had asked once, I knew that. I just don’t remember.

He asks me about music, and this is a chance to connect. To understand each other. Music is nice that way, like going to church or playing basketball. It says a lot about you without you saying anything at all. And it works. After a few minutes of conversation, Jonah leans in slightly, close enough that I can hear him exhale through the rattle of the bus, his mouth half open. There’s a thought there on the tip of his tongue, a concept that he’s wanted to share with someone else for a long time, his own little observation about how the world works. Maybe, he thinks, you could understand. 

“Have you ever heard a song for the first time and realized that you’ve heard that song your entire life?”

“What do you mean?”

Jonah frowns a little, hesitant from my confusion. “I guess it sounded better in my head. Forget it.”

“Hey, I’m not going to make fun of you. I just want to understand where you’re coming from.”

“Okay, well.” He looks a bit uncomfortable, but resumes speaking. “It’s hard to explain. A lot of good music speaks to the heart, yeah? Doesn’t matter what kind or what genre, but everyone has a song or some lyrics that means something to them, something important. You must have one.” His eyes ask for a follow-up, and I oblige.

“Somebody That I Used to Know,” I say. “By Gotye.” It’s an offering from me, a trade so I can receive more of him. I even quote a line. “You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness, like resignation to the end.”

“Exactly.” Jonah processes my words for a moment. “Why that part, exactly?”

I shrug. “I’ve been there.”

“Word.” He doesn’t dig any further. “But because of that, because of your own experiences, you find meaning in those words. Imagine if you heard that song now, for the first time, with the life you’ve led. Wouldn’t you be surprised at how much you felt from those lyrics? Wouldn’t those words be meant just for you?”

I ponder those words as Jonah takes out his phone, offers me one half of his earphones. 

“I only first heard this song a few months ago,” he says. “But I know I’ve heard for a long time.”

I take it and fit it in my ear, and he pulls up an album, finds the song he wants. “Everlong,” by the Foo Fighters. A song I’d missed my entire life. He presses play.

I don’t hear anything at first, not over the sound of the bus as it makes its way down the lonely street. But then there it is, the start of a quiet guitar riff, coursing through the tiny speakers of the earphone with a quiet pulsing energy. Gentle, precise strums of fingers that knew exactly what to say. The music swells.

“This is me,” Jonah says. There’s mixed emotion in his words, embarrassment and excitement and surprise all at once, as if he’s telling me a secret. “This is what I hear. A rush of adrenaline, anxiety, promise, all coursing through your veins. And you realize that it’s always been there.”

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Write a very short story or the opening of a longer story that begins, “The first time I heard SPECIFIC SONG TITLE by SPECIFIC ARTIST, I was at PLACE and we were doing ACTION.” [750 words max]

(04/25/23) I forgot to write my thoughts for this one… oh well. I was floating around an idea about the experience of becoming closer with a stranger and ended up using it for this exercise. Also I was listening to a lot of Foo Fighters.

Breathe out, so I can breathe you in…