You Are What You Listen To

Music has always been a part of my life, as it is apart of most peoples. I love to listen to hear and sing the music I love as loudly as possible. While thinking about what songs have defined me and my life I have come up with four main songs. Those songs are, “Cowboy Take Me Away,” “Super Freak,” “Beautiful to Him,” and “Mama’s Song.”

Being from Las Vegas, many people automatically assume I am a city girl, what they don’t know is that my heart belongs in the country. My parents were raised in a small farming town in California, so I became acquainted with country music, country living, and cowboys at a very young age. I can distinctly remember being no older than five, going to the fair and dreaming one day of marrying a cowboy. When I first heard the song “Cowboy Take Me Away” by the Dixie Chicks, I knew it was my song. Moving to Logan, and going to a school centered on Agricultural studies made my desire to meet a cowboy the punch line of many family jokes. My brother even wrote on my graduation present, “Don’t marry the first cowboy you meet.” It may be a joke, and it might never come about that I meet a cowboy to marry, but this song will always be one that I enjoy listening to and will always bring back memories of my childhood and dreaming of my perfect cowboy.

A lot of the songs that I listen to now, or know have been a part of my childhood. One song that I remember from my childhood is “Super Freak” by Rick James. I remember being in fourth grade and getting called a freak because I wasn’t a normal little girl. I remember that I thrived on that and loved being different. I began to sing “I’m a super freak, super freak, I’m super freaky” on the playground and told everyone it was my theme song. I of course, grew out of this and forgot about the song and the meaning it held for me until just recently. I was riding in the car with my friends and the first few notes began to play, I then hear, “this is your song, Tasha.” I didn’t recognize it at first, but then the chorus came on and I went back to that time on the playground singing it and knowing that I wasn’t normal. As I look back and think upon my life, that seems to be a constant theme, I am a super freak, and proud.

Being accepted by others is never something I have put a lot of time and effort into doing. I knew that I only wanted the approval of my parents and my savior. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and I love that. In my religion, girls are taught from the very beginning that they are daughters of a heavenly being. As I came to this knowledge, I found that music helped me to believe and to really understand. I found one song in particular that I love. This song is “Beautiful to him” by Jenny Frogley. This song is all about seeking approval from your savior, instead of seeking it from the world and those who want to bring you down. I first heard this song when I was at a crucial age where many teenage girls are seeking approval from many different sources and self confidence is lost. I sang this song in a choir and I remember feeling deep in my heart that I was loved and that I was enough as the person that I am. I know because of this song that I don’t need to be anyone besides myself. I know that this song is one of the reasons that I am the person I am today.

Another song that I know has shaped me has to do more with what the song is about than a memory of the song. The song is titled “Mama’s Song” and is by Carrie Underwood. I love this song because it is about the message of a mother and her desires for her child. I have the best mom that anyone could ask for. I know of her wishes and desires for me and I want to be able to fulfill those desires. I want to be the person that my mom can be proud of and happy with. As I am away at college, I know it has been hard for both of us to be apart and it has been hard to have to grow up. The chorus of the song talks about how this little girl has grown up and found what her mama wants for her and how her mom doesn’t need to worry anymore because she is being taken care of and is becoming a strong adult. This song just makes me happy. I love my mom. She is a huge person in my life and I hope to live everyday in a way that would make her proud. The song then continues on to explain that when the girl is grown up and has a child of her own she will want them to say the same thing that this girl is saying now. This also has meaning to me because I will have children one day and will raise them the way my mom raised me so that one day I can be proud of the person that they have become.

These songs are songs that have shaped my life. They have made me who I am. The words in them have influenced my life. Most of the songs go back to a time when I was a carefree child, but I can still connect with them today as a responsible adult. As I have listened to and really thought about each of these songs, and what my day sounds like, I have realized one thing; we are what we listen to.