Building on the “Why do we like music topic from the other day, the idea of music and songs has been on my mind.

I was cooking this afternoon and Don’t Look Back in Anger by Oasis started playing in the background. In the middle of slicing shallots, my mind took me to a campground in Australia.

It was the last night of harvest in the Hunter Valley. The campground was full of backpackers from around the world — we had all been living there for the previous few weeks, picking grapes at various vineyards in the area.

On the final evening, we threw a little party. Most of us were kicked out of the campground the next morning as a result of the chaos that ensued — but that’s a story for another time.

At one point, that epic Oasis song started to play and everyone sang along in the way that a rowdy group of young backpackers do. Much of that night is a blur, many details are forgotten due to the excessive consumption of wine. But this particular moment is forever burned into my mind.

And every time that I hear that song, It takes me back to that moment in a random campground in Australia.

There are other songs that have a similar effect. BT’s Godspeed takes me back to one of the first raves that I ever attended, and to this day my spine shivers each time I hear it.

Papercut, by Linkin Park, is another. Within seconds of those first beats, my mind is transported to a fascinating and curious evening in my friend’s basement — more than 20 years ago.

There are others, too. Songs that, when I hear them, affect me in a physical way. My mental guard drops and my knees weaken. I don’t talk about these songs, I don’t have them on any playlists, and there are few who know what they are. I keep them close to my heart. These are the songs that I play when I need to feel what they invoke. In a sense, they’re not only my kryptonite, but my solace.

I’m curious about this concept. I can accept that the love of music in general comes from our tribal roots as humans, when we sang stories around the fire. But the idea that these seemingly insignificant moments in time can be permanently burned into memory based on a random soundtrack is beyond my comprehension.

Why do a handful of songs hold such power?