I moved to a new town, two states away from my previous home, in 2004, when I was 13. In 8th grade, my social skills and mental stability deteriorated disastrously, leaving me confused and insecure with no friends and an inability to make new ones. I didn't improve much as I entered high school, but one thing that did improve was my singing. I discovered that although my nonexistant conversational skills couldn't get me noticed or appreciated, my voice could. In choir, I would instantly take the chance to sing solo sections while other girls whined about how they couldnever do that. At talent shows, I would dress up boldly and sing anything that showed off my voice, with no regard for the lyrics or message coming out of my mouth. Attention became my substitute for friendship, both onstage and off.
One evening last October (16 and in 11th grade at this point, so you don't have to do the math,) I was home alone for the weekend, so I was taking advantage and singing whatever I felt like. I decided to sing along with my favorite live version of Places (I had been into downloading Ours shows for about a year and a half.) I was quite familiar with the studio version, as I had gone through a phase where I sung it obsessively a few months earlier, but the verses are awkwardly low for me and the chorus is right around the break of my head voice. The live version of Places, however, is in a different key than the studio version, and I found it extremely convenient. I had always been drawn to Places from the moment I heard it, but it was only last year that I began to really understand the lyrics. Jimmy Gnecco once explained that he wrote Places about fear of commitment, but to me it sounds like it could be about any debilitating negative thought pattern or behavior, like pessimism or social anxiety. My interpretation of Places seemed strikingly similar to my story, and as I got accustomed to singing Places once again, I found I was able to feel a connection to it and sing it with real conviction, something I hadn't ofen experienced with music. Places is also one of my mom's favorite songs as well as mine (I got her into Ours.) I knew I had found the perfect song to sing for solo night the next spring.
The ideal partner for this project was a boy I had known since I started high school. In the time I had known him, he struck me as quite clever and funny without being a blatant class clown, but kind of soft-spoken and distant when actually confronted for conversation. And, of course, a devoted guitarist and music obsessive. For 9th grade and the beginning of 10th, he was the secret crush that I shyly admired from a distance. In 10th grade, a misunderstanding between us (my fault ENTIRELY, he was completely unaware) left me unreasonably upset over him for the next few months - that summer, my mom accidentally got me onto the subject of him and I said something to the effect of that I wished I could forget he existed. But in 11th grade, we thankfully ended up back on friendly speaking terms again, and I no longer felt any tension or regret about my past situations with him.
A few weeks before the big event, in March, I asked him to play acoustic guitar with me on the song I wanted to sing for solo night, which he of course accepted. I was unable to find it online, so I transcribed it for him myself. During the week before solo night, we practiced it at school during lunch. He learned it quickly and was ever-supportive of me, even when we played it for some of my classmates from choir and my voice faltered from nervousness. This was the first time I had ever been nervous about a performance. Whenever my mom asked me what I was doing for solo night, I gave no hints at all. She wouldn't find out until she walked in and picked up a program. Solo night was shaping up to be a real-life movie moment.
Solo night took place on March 27th. I chose my outfit less than an hour before leaving the house, as opposed to the few weeks to a month that I usually planned in advance for solo nights. While the outfit I chose was by no means simple or understated, I was taking quite a different route than usual. I went to the high school, where solo night takes place, early and practiced Places a few times by myself by playing the melody on a piano backstage. That night, in the minutes before my acquaintance-accompanist and I were set to play, we stood side-by-side behind the stage in a surreal comfortable silence while someone faltered through a shaky song on the other side of the curtain. As they finished, the two of us just smiled at each other briefly, then stepped into the light together.
It didn't really seem like it was happening. I had wanted to do it for almost six months, but I don't think I ever imagined that I was really doing it. It was the first time in years I had made an effort to do something that mattered. I sang with the intention of creating a memory I could be proud of, not just planting seeds for compliments I could drink up later. I knew my mom was in the audience listening to me sing one of our favorite songs and watching me happy and comfortable next to a person I had been crying over the last time she heard about him.
For a short time after the performance, I was upset because I didn't think I did as well as I could have, but in hindsight, I think solo night this year was the best experience of my life since I moved here. While my life is far from sorted out, at least I sang something that actually mattered to me instead of using it for just another chance to show off, and I proved that I had fixed one of my biggest regrets. Places will forever represent this amazing memory for me.
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