Song Cycles

Song Cycles

Written by Tierney Mckeown
Photographed by Laura Valentine

Every other summer, my family and I would take a trip to our favorite shore in New Jersey — Sea Isle City. Along with the abundance of towels, sunscreen, and bathing suits packed, there’s one thing we’d never forget: a speaker. Since my dad and aunts were always on aux, you would expect to hear a lot of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fleetwood Mac, and of course, The Clash. My cousins and I would wake up to the sound of our family bustling around in the kitchen making coffee or tea and dancing to “Rock the Casbah” by The Clash. Right off the bat, this track had the ability to get everyone up and moving, especially my grandma, who had the best dance moves of us all. 

I’d often mess up the lyrics of the chorus, “Rock the casbah,” by replacing them with my own: “Rock the asphalt.” Although my lack of knowledge about the song would receive the utmost laughter, it marked so many wonderful moments of my childhood. I’d play it over and over on my iPod Touch, in the car, on my CD player at home. There was never a dull moment when “Rock the Casbah” existed. As years passed and I began to develop a music taste of my own, I’d completely forgotten about the catchy tune that defined my childhood. 

Funnily enough, the same song I’d hear blasting in my family’s rented beach homes echoed throughout my room just a couple of weeks ago and I was instantly transported back in time. Nostalgia flowed through my body and I immediately perked up to ask my roommate what the title of the song playing was. “Rock the Casbah,” she replied nonchalantly. I couldn’t believe it. How could I have forgotten the song my family and I were utterly obsessed with? I FaceTimed my dad and told him what I had rediscovered. “Rock the asphalt, you mean?”

At the beginning of the year, my roommate Siena and I were complete strangers. All I knew was that she enjoyed constantly blaring music through the room just as much as I did. Posters of The Cure, The Pixies, and Radiohead decorated her wall and I quickly deemed her music taste as “dad rock.” Her passion for these artists, along with many others, brought me back to my beloved Jersey Shore, the passenger’s seat of my dad’s work truck, and my older cousin’s Sweet 16 surprise party, just to name a few. To me, music tends to stick to its devoted listeners like glue. Although I hadn’t heard “Rock the Casbah” in years, I still remembered all of the timing of piano riffs, the chorus, and the quirky laser sounds featured in the fourth verse. 

At midnight on my birthday, Siena played “Rock the Casbah,” and the same for her birthday that followed just the next month. The second the sound of drums hit her speaker, our friends were up and boogying in celebration of our 20th and 21st birthdays. It brought me back to old times, reminding me that music is timeless; and in that moment, so were we. Now the track defines two significant eras of my life; fond memories from childhood and blossoming connections you make through young adulthood. Music has the power to bring back lost memories while simultaneously creating new ones. It also evokes emotions you’d never think would resurface. Songs like “Rock the Casbah” have the same effect as so many others, because music is held in a special place in both our brains and hearts. So thank you, The Clash. Maybe I’ll forget about your song again and hear it randomly play somewhere another ten years down the road. The only difference is that I’ll get the lyrics right this time.