The other night, Brad and I were doing one of our favorite things: absolutely nothing special...and yet, somehow exceptionally special. We tackled a dangerously good charcuterie board, popped open a bottle of mouth-watering wine, and played music through the speakers while we danced barefoot in the kitchen like no one was watching (at least I hope no one was watching 😬).
These hang nights are incredibly sacred to us. Music is how we got to know each other. It's how we still learn new things about each other. A song comes on and suddenly there's a story neither of us has heard before...a memory...a feeling...an opportunity to deepen our connection. Sometimes we invertedly learn something about ourselves that was buried in a chorus.
Most of our memories now are shared memories. There's something deeply comforting about that. It's as if together, we've built our own soundtrack. However, every now and then a song sneaks in and takes us somewhere that existed before "us" - somewhere that is personal to our core.
The other night it was Piano Man by Billy Joel.
That song came on and, in an instant, I wasn't in our kitchen anymore.
Instead, I was in New Orleans.
Specifically, I was on Bourbon Street after a long day of work meetings, still in business attire, and walking into one of the coolest places I've ever experienced: Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar.
If you've never been to this place, go. Seriously, book the trip and go!
This place was built in the 1700s and it's widely believed to be the oldest structure used as a bar in the U.S. To be fair, it looks and feels like it, too. The walls are thick and worn, holding secrets I cannot even imagine. There is no electricity, so the entire place glows in candlelight. The vibe is almost cinematic, but at the same time you half expect a pirate to wander in at any moment.
We ordered some of their infamous purple drinks with extra cherries (which I later learned were soaked in Everclear...total rookie move). We paid at an old-school manual cash register and made our way to the piano in the back of the bar.
We squeezed in around it, some of my favorite friends/colleagues and I. They were the kind of people who blur the lines between business colleagues and chosen family. The piano player was taking requests, moving from song to song, and we were singing along like we'd rehearsed for this our entire lives. If you've ever heard me sing, the thought of this may very well terrify you.
Then the Piano Man started playing Piano Man.
The opening notes of that song are 100% unmistakable. To be authentic, he drew us in with the harmonica. To me, this song is nostalgic even if you've never set foot in a bar like the one the song is about.
But...in that moment, we were there...we were IN it.
The crowd was singing. Arms around shoulders. Glasses raised. The candlelight flickering against old worn walls. It felt as if the lyrics weren't describing some bar in the 1970s but rather being written in real time - through us. "There's an old man sitting next to me..." Suddenly everyone in that room had a backstory. Every person was a character in Piano Man - we were no longer listening to a song. We were inside it. We were living it...note by note.
I had known and appreciated the song for years. It's iconic, catchy, and one of those songs everyone knows the words to whether they're willing to admit it or not. However, that was the first night I truly understood it. The longing, the connection, the shared humanity of a room full of strangers wanting to feel something together.
That's what music does when it's at its best. It collapses time, deepens memory, and dishes up perspective without permission.
The most beautiful part wasn't even the song itself. It was the friends with whom I was sharing that moment. We locked arms and eyes mid-chorus and laughed (there may have been an emotional tear or two) because we all felt it. We felt that "this is one of those moments" feeling.
Now, when I hear Piano Man, I'm back at Lafitte's. I'm standing there in the candlelit room enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime experience with my friends - and making some questionable life choices by eating those cherries.🤢
I'm eternally grateful for music because it gives us this generous gift of time travel. It stores our memories, keeping them safe for retrieval. And then, on one random night in the kitchen, it hands them back and suddenly, we're reliving some of our favorite moments.
Love and music are life's greatest gifts. One teaches us how to connect and the other reminds us of past connections.
When was the moment you truly understood a song you'd known forever? I don't mean when you learned you liked it...I mean when you learned you UNDERSTOOD it. Maybe it was at a concert, maybe alone in your car on a road trip, maybe in that same candlelit bar in New Orleans.
