Adam Blatner

We finished our spring concert of the Sun City Singers, and the songs keep running through my mind. This happens: By about three weeks before a concert to about three weeks after, the songs become invasive, filling the time between dreams. I’ve been in this singers’ chorus for over 18 years and three times a year, for the Spring, Fourth of July, and Christmas concerts, this happens. I wonder if this happens for other people who make music and have a concert—that the music continues to run in the mind for a while after the performance.

It’s a little annoying, a little disturbing; but mainly, it occurs to me, this is a gift: It’s like my guardian angels are saying, “You really know this song now, you have this in your repertoire. You can settle into having bathed in this music.” It does feel like a bit of an experience for my life, having sung these. Some of the songs I’ve even sung before, and it’s like they’re old friends that I’ve had an opportunity to get together with again.

Some people go here or there and have the photo albums and memorabilia to prove it. I did a bit of that, but songs are for me more nourishing. I can go back and taste them, so to speak, sing them a bit to myself or in the shower. I haven’t thought of it this way before, but the songs I’ve sung are like collected stamps or postcards, they’re special memories.