Secret Tracks

I mean sure I’d love to be universally adored in a sparkly, arena-tour, confetti-cannon kinda way but to be aggressively honest I’m looking for my secret-track peeps, the ones who don’t need context when I say Jewel’s hidden “Little Bird” duet with her mom, the ones who hear Hootie’s “Goodbye” or Blink’s “I’m Sorry” and feel that hyper-niche nostalgia-ache reserved for songs that never got radio play but somehow rewired your adolescence anyway — and I think it’s because these hide-and-seek tracks, these actual, physical, wait-through-the-static songs, felt completely like contraband. Like you had to earn them. You’d let the CD spin and wait through the static or silence (or in Blink’s case… sounds) thinking it was over and then boom, there it was, this fragile bonus song spiraling outta your boombox like the Mad Hatter personally inducting you into some underground society for lyric-worshippers and limerence addicts and dramatic little weirdos who needed proof that someone else secretly felt everything this hard even after, like, 13 acts of suburban devastation. These little off-the-books, under-the-floorboards numbers — and honestly, art of all kinds — can cut through a crowded room, can pull you toward yourself like that one inexplicably magnetic person you keep making electric eye contact with, can say, “Hey, I see you” and “Remember this holy little thing that felt like you were the sole discoverer of an island made of pure wonder and golden agony and exquisite pain?” and they’re like, “Yeah, actually. I do,” as they pass you a can of beer or Fresca and you’re locked there, in one hella romantic 90’s frat-party moment, feeling what I’m pretty sure we all came to this shindig to feel: like we’re meant to be here, like someone’s hot breath is whispering in your ear, “Psst! You. Yes, you! Tomorrow used to be a day away. Don’t bide your time, ‘cause it is almost over. And the only time she touches the ground is when that little bird dies.” 

So, like — fly. Or something.

I know there’s at least one of you out there.