Some songs don’t just stay in your head.
They wait in the shadows. They wait for years.
And when they play again, they pull you back—without asking.
You’re no longer where you are.
You’re in Grade 4, on a Good Friday, standing in front of your church.
You’re singing “Tell the World of His Love” under dim lights during a tenebrae service, the shadows creeping in, the room almost completely still.
You don’t understand everything.
But you feel it.
You feel the weight of silence.
You feel something holy—and it cracks something open.
That’s the first time I remember crying over a song.
I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t even sure why I cried. But the moment stayed.
And years later, I would understand: that music had done something permanent.
Childhood Sounds, Volume One
I didn’t grow up in a household that banned music. But it was shaped by church.
Worship music was the default.
Songs for Sunday, songs for ministry, songs for devotion.
That was the standard background.
But outside of those hours? The world was loud.
Grade 1 came with The Moffats, Hanson, and Aaron Carter. I remember singing with classmates on school breaks. My voice wasn’t good, but I didn’t care. Everyone was singing. That’s what mattered.
In Grade 3, a friend handed me an Aqua cassette like it was a secret gift. I played it over and over until the tape warped. That same year, Britney Spears came into my life via a neighbor’s radio. I didn’t choose her. I just heard her every single morning while preparing for school.
Sometimes, I’d sing with her too. Under my breath.
Westlife. Backstreet Boys. Boyzone. The Corrs. A-Teens. M2M.
Even Salbakuta’s “Stupid Love”—which, at one point, I memorized from start to finish. (Don’t ask me how.)
I didn’t know what kind of music I loved. I just knew I was listening.
To everything.
The Pinoy Rock Years
High school came, and music changed again.
It wasn’t just background noise anymore—it started shaping my identity.
Parokya ni Edgar, Rivermaya, Eraserheads—these weren’t just bands. They were moods. Entire weekends. Tambay energy. School projects and crushes and petty fights and hallway laughter.
Chinese pop made a brief appearance too, thanks to our Chinese Music class. I remember stumbling through Mandarin lyrics, half-proud, half-confused.
But there was one song that mattered more than the rest.
Gary Valenciano’s “I Will Be Here.”
Not even a rock song. But it played over and over in my head because of her—my high school girlfriend.
She said it was her favorite. I held onto that like a keepsake.
That song stayed with me.
It was the soundtrack of one of the most decisive days of my life: the day she said yes.
She’s my wife now.
And that song? It still sends me back.
Sound and Place: A Strange Familiarity
There’s a weird thing that happens sometimes. I’ll hear the first few notes of a song—and suddenly, I’m somewhere else.
Not just emotionally, but physically.
Like I can smell the room.
Feel the old floor under my feet.
Even see the sunlight as it looked that day.
It creeps me out sometimes. The specificity of it.
Music doesn’t just store memory. It replays it with details I thought I forgot.
A dusty classroom. A humid afternoon. The rustling of a worn-out songbook. A basketball game in the distance. A slow, dragging summer.
All because of a song I haven’t heard in years.
The Soundtrack of Belief—and Losing It
I’ve lived long enough to say that not all memories are welcome.
There are songs I can’t listen to anymore.
Some I purposely avoid.
Not because they’re bad—but because they’re heavy. They remind me of versions of myself I’m no longer proud of. Or versions that hurt too much to revisit.
There were songs tied to my church life. Worship songs I used to lead with a full heart, a steady voice, and belief that didn’t waver.
When my faith cracked—when depression came, and silence replaced prayer—those songs felt like salt.
I would hear them and flinch.
Even Christmas songs, which I used to love with absurd enthusiasm, felt off-limits.
“The Christmas Song” used to make me smile in June.
After everything, I couldn’t even listen in December.
It felt like betrayal.
Like I lost a part of me that I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover.
The Unexpected Shelter of Other Faiths
In my search for quiet, I stumbled upon “Hashkiveinu.”
It’s a Jewish prayer for shelter and peace.
I don’t know why I clicked on it.
Maybe the name intrigued me. Maybe the melody felt like a lullaby I hadn’t heard before.
But the first time I listened, I exhaled.
Really exhaled. Like I hadn’t in months.
During exams. During breakdowns. During moments when I didn’t want to think—this was the song I played.
It wasn’t from my tradition. But it felt like refuge.
Later, “Shehecheyanu” would also join that secret playlist. A song of gratitude for having reached a moment.
Both of them reminded me that maybe I wasn’t alone.
Maybe I was just looking in the wrong direction for comfort.
P-Pop and the Return of Joy
After I became a doctor, I didn’t have a plan to find joy.
But it found me.
Through music. Again.
BINI entered my life first—thanks to my wife. Then ALAMAT, KAIA, and a flood of P-Pop tracks that gave language to something I’d forgotten: that being Filipino could be joyful, too.
It wasn’t just “representation.”
It was resonance.
ALAMAT’s multilingual tracks, BINI’s empowered femininity, KAIA’s raw charm—they reminded me of how music could carry meaning without explanation.
They pulled me into a deeper love for OPM classics.
I started listening to Rey Valera, VST & Co., and even novelty songs my uncles used to laugh over.
In a strange twist, fandom helped me reconnect with old parts of myself. I met fellow health workers who were BLOOMs. Made new friends who were Magiliws. Reconnected with music as something communal again.
Music became home.
Again.
Private Playlists. Public Silence. And the 60-40 Split.
I keep playlists that no one knows about.
They’re not special, really. Just collections of songs for certain days. Songs I reach for when I can’t talk. Or when I need to remember who I used to be.
I haven’t kept a music diary, but maybe I should.
Because when I look at my current playlist—it doesn’t just show taste.
It shows growth.
It shows grief.
It shows the wide, awkward arc of someone trying to believe again.
Lyrics matter more to me than melodies. Maybe a 60-40 split.
But I’m learning to appreciate instrumentals more. Especially when I’m tired of words.
Sometimes silence wrapped in sound says what language cannot.
The Archive That Wasn’t Meant to Be
I never set out to create an archive.
But when I trace back the songs that stayed, the ones I saved, the ones I still skip—I see the whole thing.
It’s not organized.
It doesn’t follow the rules of a journal.
But it’s real.
There are worship songs from a boy who believed deeply.
Boyband pop from someone trying to belong.
P-Pop tracks from a doctor finding joy again.
Lullabies from another faith that gave me calm when my own could not.
And there are the quiet ones—the ones that still sting.
The ones I skip without skipping, by instinct.
If You Listen Closely
If I played you my playlist, you wouldn’t hear structure.
You’d hear longing.
You’d hear someone trying to make sense of belief, burnout, first love, failure, faith, fandom, and home.
You’d hear someone who doesn’t always sing out loud anymore, but still listens.
And maybe that’s what matters.
That we’re still listening.
That we’re still archiving.
Whether we mean to or not.
That we’re building something—a record of us.
Made not of dates or journals.
But of melodies.
Because the truth is…
Our memory keeps music.
But music?
It keeps us too.
