2 steppin' at the rink
When I hear the 2004 song "1, 2 Step" by Ciara ft Missy Elliott, I am struck by a vivid memory of the "dance floor" at a Florida skating rink where parents would drop their kids for the evening. I was 9 at the time, and did not yet have an iPod or computer so I was only exposed to the music my parents played in the car (Country from my mom, Hard Rock from my dad) or that I heard out in public, and so the skating rink was I believe my first encounter with the song, which reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was surely familiar to other kids whose families played pop or hip hop radio. I remember feeling distinctly confused and perhaps retroactively I can say I felt like an outsider. I do not especially recall any interactions with the other kids while the song played, I think my attention was diverted toward some pizza being served.
Fast forward some years (2011 to be precise) to High School, and I had some kind of iPod and regularly sailed the high seas in search of new sounds to listen to. At some point, I can't quite say when, I fell in love with dancing. Not any particular form of dancing; I did not have lessons, and I didn't even go to parties where other people were dancing. But somehow, perhaps primarily through music videos on YouTube, I began to pick up different moves and developed my own vocabulary of dance which I would practice religiously alone in my room without ever meaning to or even realizing that I was quite so devout.
It was in this context that I rediscovered Ciara's 2004 mega-hit, along with many other noughties classics to come out of Atlanta such as Lil Jon's Crunk music and the whole ringtone rap scene. I experienced these songs primarily through their music videos on YouTube and as downloads on my iPod, and I do not think many if any of my peers at the time (fairly nerdy groups that I knew from activities like robotics club, ethics debate, and board game nights) shared my enthusiasm for this strain of music. Still, I deeply internalized these songs during this time, and they remain some of my favorite songs to dance to today.
The question I want to consider is: where exactly do I go when I hear 1, 2 Step? I started this post by telling you that it reminds me of a specific childhood experience where I did not feel particularly connected to the song, and now I have told you that I later came to love it and continue to listen to it regularly today. I really feel on some level that I am going to essentially the same place as anyone else who loves this iconic track. The song itself transports you to a world where the dance floor is the only thing that matters. Whether you were tuned in and moving to the song when it peaked on Billboard or not, the recording is the recording, and we all allow ourselves to be transported to Ciara and Missy Elliott's world when we hear the song.
We all (most of us anyway) have particular associations of certain songs with certain environments, people, and feelings. And those are important to us because they form part of our identity, our narrative of who we are, where we have been and where we are going. In my case, I used to be a confused child who felt they were not part of the fun, and then I later became someone who could appreciate the unmatched bounce of Jazze Pha's production. But music exists only in the present, where questions of where we have been and where we are going have diminished relevance, and for a moment at any given time a piece of recorded music can teleport the people hearing it to a unique place, a place that never really existed but at the same time always will exist as long as the recording is preserved.
This has been the first post of my new publication As Heard By Us, where I aim to connect with people by using music to explore the tension between the specific and the universal. That is, I want to hear from you! What songs and artists have played a role in your life? Where does music take you? What memories are waiting to be unearthed by the right song or the right conversation about a song, and how can we use the memories to live better lives today?
