A song is a key for locked memory boxes. A song can transport you back through time, giving you a chance to relive moments and ideas that occurred back when you first heard that song. A song is not just a song; it is also a story.
Animal Collective – “The Purple Bottle”
The song that has lived with me for many years is “The Purple Bottle” by Animal Collective from their record Feels.
When I listen to “The Purple Bottle” I am transported back to my last year off of high school. During this time Katie (Lee) and Taylor (Smith) had been working at the local radio station CJSW. Katie came across the record Feels and showed it to Taylor. At first he didn’t like it, but after a couple weeks Taylor started playing it non-stop in his car, which he drove me to school in. We’d blast it loudly in his car, before school, after school, just all the time!
My fondest memory of that song is when the four of us went to a party together. Taylor had parked his car out front the house where the party was going on, and inside the car he was again blasting Feels. The four of us began dancing around the car which had bits of broken beer bottles around it. The beer bottles were of a purple glass, and I remember thinking of how beautiful it feels to have a song written by someone else who lives a different life from you relate so closely to your own life. At that point I realized that I wanted to share with people what I was seeing so that they could connect a portion of their life with mine without even knowing me. I wanted them to know that we were all one. I was 16 so when one this age reaches an epiphany like this it feels like the whole world is going to explode! It was a very intense experience. The lyric ‘found your bottle found your heart’ made me feel like we had found our hearts with each other while dancing amongst the bottles. Ha ha! Oh being young is such a beautiful thing. Such an open heart!
- Raphaelle Strandelle-Preston (guitarist/lead vocals) of Braids
Photos by Colleen Hale-Hodgson
Read “Native Speaker” by Braids
