How music connects us to our memories
essay by Cate Stern
illustrations by Keith Borshak
I was 22 years old when my dad and I drove together from Washington, D.C., to Texas. I’d recently gotten engaged to my boyfriend — a Marine in flight school — and planned to move into his condo 1,600 miles away in Corpus Christi. I don’t recall exactly how we decided my dad would join me on the trip, but I always assumed he wanted to make sure I arrived safely.
We left early on a Thursday morning. A clunky Garmin StreetPilot, perched precariously on the dash of my sedan, guided us from D.C. through Virginia. With grand plans to sample as much barbecue as possible between Tennessee and Texas, we dined exclusively at Subway that first day, operating under the shared delusion that turkey subs on wheat fell within the purview of health food.
We reached Nashville in the early evening and checked into our hotel, a garish but fantastic spot for fans of fake boats traversing fake rivers around islands of real restaurants located within a real hotel. I loved it. My dad informed me that we’d be hanging out with a family friend — a priest named Tom. He lived in Nashville and wanted to show us around.
We met at a honky-tonk on Broadway, where over drinks and the sound of live music my dad explained, “Tom married your mom and me.” He had a habit of mentioning important details like this in a casual manner, like he was telling me “the keys are on the counter” or “we’re running low on milk.” I was 13 and passing him a basket of dinner rolls when he told me that he’d been married once before.
The next day, I was already thinking about leaving Nashville, eager to press on to Texas to see my fiancé. But we’d planned to spend another full day in town, and someone — probably Tom — had secured tickets to see the Grand Ole Opry that night. Not only was I ready to get on the road, I knew approximately two Brad Paisley songs and who Dolly Parton was, which is to say I was less than enthused about joining my dad and Tom-the-priest for a concert billed as a “live country music radio broadcast.”
I didn’t then appreciate the Grand Ole Opry’s legacy and relevance: Hank Williams, Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson are just a few of the legends to have graced the stage of this century-old show. My dad, Tom and I sat in the first few rows, which resembled pews and lent to the sense that we were about to witness something holy. Jim Ed Brown — another country music legend about whom I was then ignorant — hosted the show, and a father-daughter bluegrass trio, the Whites, was the first musical act to perform.
When Brown announced the next artist — “Here is Ms. Taylor Swift!” — a 16-year-old girl in a white sundress with blond curls cascading over her shoulders took the stage to sing a song she’d written called “Tim McGraw.” Swift’s lyrics detailed a relationship’s end and how music connects us with our memories — the immediate way a song can send us back to an exact moment.
Teary-eyed after her performance, I had to admit Tom had been right to insist on seeing the Opry. Something about the venue — the intimacy of the immediate setting — and the combination of established and new artists playing there felt magical. I snapped a picture on my camera, thinking maybe I’d hear Swift on the radio after her first album was released the following month.
Over the next few days, my dad and I manifested our barbecue dreams with stops in Memphis, Little Rock, Austin and San Antonio, before we landed in Corpus Christi. After we unloaded the car, my dad, my fiancé and I walked the beach across the street and had dinner together. My dad flew home the next morning, leaving me to navigate this new stage of life. Long after we saw her debut, Swift wrote a song about the conflicting emotions associated with being 22 years old. Looking back, I can see some of that in my younger self: The freedom of early adulthood was at once thrilling and terrifying.
Last year, my eldest daughter and I planned our first trip together, and we settled on visiting Nashville. Like so many 11-year-olds, she was a Taylor Swift fan, and she loved the story of how her grandfather and I had witnessed her Opry debut in 2006.
As we rolled our bags into the hotel where my dad and I had stayed 18 years earlier, I was struck by how much remained the same: the humidity from the fake rivers still hung in the air, and the restaurants sat on islands as I remembered. Some things were new, like the massive water park within the hotel called “SoundWaves” and the fact that I was almost two decades older, returning with a child of my own. Things were missing, too. My dad had died in 2021, and Tom had passed just two years before him.
On our first night, my daughter and I ate dinner at a Dolly Parton-inspired rooftop restaurant, complete with multiple bachelorette parties, a mirrored ceiling and a DJ who strongly resembled a Blues Brother. On the patio, which was decorated in pink and green furniture, we snapped photos with a gigantic, pink replica of Dolly’s head.
The next day, we toured the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, where we admired Elvis’ gold Cadillac and hovered over glass cases of handwritten song lyrics. We saw Taylor Swift’s “Tim McGraw” — the song she sang when my dad, Tom and I saw the Opry — scrawled on lined paper in purple ink. When we reached Eric Church’s notes on his song “Carolina,” my daughter laughed at the way Church had circled the words “Elk River” and then written “Creek?” in the margin, as if he’d have to research the exact nature of the hydrological feature when he had more time.
“River?” I said. “Creek?” my daughter responded, her voice inflected like she was Eric Church trying to get to the bottom of this, before shrugging. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll figure it out later.”
That evening, my daughter donned her new cowgirl boots and hat and together we walked from the hotel to the Grand Ole Opry. Inside, we slid into our row, and soon the show opened with the Opry Square Dancers, an energetic troupe that clogged across the stage dressed in red costumes. We all cheered as they broke off into pairs and danced to the fiddle. Grammy-winning artist Jeannie Seely sang next, followed by 22-year-old Matt Schuster, who made his Opry debut that night with a haunting cover of Billy Joel’s “Vienna.” It’s a song about growing older and savoring the day rather than just seizing it. My daughter eased forward, enchanted by Schuster’s powerful performance, and I hoped she’d tapped into the same thrill I’d felt when I saw Swift play on that stage — the energy of an accomplished generation of artists welcoming new talent on the rise.
Now that I’m closer to my dad’s age at the time of our trip, I wonder what he thought of his daughter making major life commitments at such a young age. Although he didn’t show it, he must have been nervous for me. After all, his first marriage had ended in divorce in his early 20s. But maybe he was also wary of how our relationship would change the deeper I marched into adulthood. He didn’t have to drive me to Texas. I could’ve shipped my car and flown down or enlisted a friend to join me. When we drove across the country in 2006, I wasn’t thinking, “this will make a great memory” or “someday I will treasure this.” I simply needed to get to Corpus Christi. But I’m guessing my dad knew better; he understood where this all was going.
A year after our trip, my daughter will walk in the room and say, “River?” And I’ll respond, “Creek?” She’ll shrug and say, “It’s OK. We’ll figure it out later.” In the car, she plays Taylor, Beyonce, Olivia and Sabrina, but when she turns on Schuster, I’m back there at the Opry, enjoying the magic of live music with my little girl. And then for a flash, I’m 22, sitting between my dad and Tom, watching an artist on the precipice. We are the past and present tethered by song. SP
