Thinking back to my four years at Rosary, I’ve found that it’s easier to regain every little bit of memory by hitting shuffle on my playlists from each year. Laying in bed with my eyes closed and the music rushing into my ears at an unhealthy volume, everything seems to come back to me. Whether it be boys, friends, grades, or anything in between, my old playlists serve as the soundtrack to the entirety of my high school experience.

To bask in my last 15ish days of day school and take my annual end-of-the-year walk down memory lane, I’ll be listing and explaining a few of the integral songs which make up the soundtrack to my high school experience.

Track One: Freshman Year

“B.O.M.D” by Clairo

Take a look through some of my other articles. Go ahead…do it. Did you? If you did, you would see that there are a bunch of little clues (some more obvious than others) in my articles which all point to me being one thing—a hopeless romantic. But, did I really even need to say that? I mean, this song title is an abbreviation for “boy of my dreams” after all. The short back story to this is that every time I would start liking or talking to a boy, this song would be on REPEAT. So much so, that when I would blast it in the car, my mother would ask who I was crushing on this time. This song honestly shows me how much I really haven’t changed…because you can still catch me belting this when I’m crushing.

“No Idea” by Don Toliver

This was the song of freshman year for EVERYONE in my opinion… This song would be echoing across the Rosary hallways, making its way onto the For You page of all of us baby freshmen. When I play this song, it takes me back to cold mornings, pin-straight hair, me being far too generous in my application of blush, and football games. Toliver’s song allows me to relive my embarrassing crush on Tik Tok star, Mattia, and my friend group obsessing over Mattia’s friend group Tik Tok coined the “Jersey boys.”

Track Two: Sophomore Year

“Comb My Hair” by Pretty Boy Aaron, Bruhnice, and Tesia

At this point, we were in the midst of quarantine, and I was experimenting with my music taste. Just like every other teen at the time, I was bored out of my mind, so I chose to tickle the unsocialized, dusty portion of my brain with funky music like this. This song reminds me of laying in my bed for an embarrassing amount of time, haphazardly paying attention to Zoom school, and facetiming friends or crushes for hours. Those were the times…times I will never, ever want to relive again.

“Stargazing” by The Neighbourhood

I actually think this song came out during the holiday part of quarantine when I was cooped up with my family and my grandparents, waking up to the aroma of my grandma and mom cooking or to the sight of my pops doing busy work in the yard nearly every day. I have a vivid memory of my parents taking us to do some quarantine-safe Christmas festivities whilst I sobbed in the back seat after spotting countless quarantine couples strolling hand-in-hand and enjoying the Christmas lights. Wow, quarantine couples…now, that’s a topic for a whole other article. Other than my crying fit to the song, this is an upbeat song that I will admit I replayed for hours while “attending” Zoom school from my patio.

Track Three: Junior Year

“Can’t Get You out of My Head” by Kylie Minogue

Once things started getting back into the swing of things after the height of COVID, that also meant that I would inevitably be getting out of the house more. Junior year was one of the first years of high school where I started actually going to real parties. And yea, that’s fun and all, but after quarantine, I developed a little bit of social anxiety. Now, before a party or function of any sort, my stomach would practically eat itself. So, to prevent this, on my way to whatever social event I was headed off to, I would blast Kylie Minogue’s iconic “Can’t Get You out of My Head.” This song…THIS SONG made me feel powerful—like I could strut into a function like a Victoria’s Secret supermodel, fans blowing and all.

“Strange Magic” by Electric Light Orchestra

My obsession with this song comes from my love for Sofia Coppola’s film adaptation of “The Virgin Suicides.” This song plays in the prom scene of the movie, and after hearing it for the first time, I could never go back. I know every single lyric to this song, and I’ve played it for hours while dancing around in my room or taking on the loads of homework that came with my junior year. At my junior HOCO, I was hoping and praying that they would somehow play this 70’s banger, but to my disappointment, they obviously did not.

Track Four: Senior Year

“Slipping Through My Fingers” by Abba (performed by the “Mamma Mia” cast)

Oddly enough, I’m actually listening to this song as I write this article for all of you! Not to be dramatic, but I do feel like my childhood/teenhood is “slipping through my fingers.” Currently, I feel like I slathered a stick of my butter on my hands, and I’m slowly but quickly having everything pulled away from me while simultaneously trying to “capture every minute.” If you’re a “Mamma Mia” fan like I am, I feel like that scene where Sophie is getting married and after having her mom help her get ready, she makes her way up to the wedding chapel on a donkey. But, instead of a wedding chapel, I’m making my way up to college and adulthood.

I feel severely unwell and emotional writing this, so I’ll end the article here. Even though I so badly want to do what ABBA said and “freeze the picture” to “save it from the funny tricks of time,” I can’t wait to start crafting my college experience soundtrack next fall…