There is nothing more visceral and raw than the connection we have to music. I am a fan of the arts generally and have produced various works in many mediums. Some of you have probably, well I wouldn’t say enjoyed, but observed some of my work during the earlier Prairie Chicken Festival days.

But music has always eluded me. I have made multiple attempts to learn an instrument, both half-assed and whole-assed attempts. All have failed. I have accepted that I just don’t have a mind for such things. The production, composition, lyrical poetry, and pure dexterity it requires to play an instrument is like magic to me.

One of my best friends can play guitar by ear– just listen to a song and hold his guitar and start playing it. I never really see him practice, not in the way you think a talented artist should. What is the saying “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice!” I am beginning to think that this is untrue, and that the real path to Carnegie is natural ability gifted from a muse.

Though my ability to perform is hampered by the idiocy of my fingers, music is still very meaningful in my life. I remember the first album I owned, “License to Ill” by the Beastie Boys. I remember how it made me feel. A middle-class white kid from a good neighborhood fighting for his right to party. Such messages stirred rebellion in my heart, but the kind of rebellion that leads to riding your bike through your neighbor’s yard after a rain and less drinking and partying, but that album spoke to me.

The first album I ever purchased myself was Metallica’s “Black” album. Again, the rebellious thrash metal was so far from the nerdy bookish kid I was, it is laughable, but again the album spoke to me in a way that is endearing to this day. I bring up these two albums because one has stood the test of time and the other has aged like milk left on a counter.

I can’t even listen to the Beastie Boys today without a feeling of cringe at the cheesiness of the music (apart from “Sabotage,” which is still a banger to this day). The “Black” album on the other hand could have been recorded yesterday and I would believe it. “Enter Sandman” is still one of my favorite songs of all time.

I think that with everyone, the music you listened to in high school is by far the most meaningful. Perhaps it’s because our minds are developing and maturing during this period, and we are far more likely to retain the emotional connections made by our environment during this period.

Entire personalities were created by the music we listened to. Punks, Grunge, Metalheads, Hip Hop, Country. All genres, yes but also, they are personalities as well. If I could claim a personality based on my listening habits it would be just a weirdo.

I listened to all sorts of things, but my favorite music was odd. My favorite band in high school was Cake. An eclectic hard-to-define, genre-mixing band. They have been described as postmodern, post punk, geek rock, jazz, but to me they just create a vibe.

You have probably heard them; they have had commercial success. In 1995 or thereabouts, the song “The Distance” was everywhere. This song was released on their second album “Fashion Nugget” and this album would become the soundtrack to a part of my life. This was the first time in my memory that I could draw correlations between the music I was listening to and the experiences I was having.

Now as an adult I understand this is probably a product of confirmation bias or rhythmic entrainment, but then it was like my life had a soundtrack and it was “Fashion Nugget.”

There were songs about cars when I was falling in love with the automobile (“Race Car Ya Yas”). There were songs about falling in love, when I first got a girlfriend (“Stick shifts and Safety Belts”). There were songs about having your heart broken, when I felt this feeling for the first time (“Friend is a Four Letter Word”). There were songs about getting over such a thing (“I Will Survive”). And there were songs about the womanizing that followed that breakup (“Italian Leather Sofa”). There was a song about the feeling of emptiness that that kind of thing leads to, though at the time I was too young to appreciate that fact (“Sad Songs and Waltzes”).

If there is such a thing as the perfect album, I think this is one. An album that you can listen to from beginning to end and, at least to me it tells a story. Just so happens to be a story of my formative years, but again this is probably just a bias in me. I have intentionally not examined the meaning behind the songs on “Fashion Nugget” for the express purpose as not to insert reality into the delightful fiction of meaning that I have attached.

Who cares what a song is about sometimes, when how it makes you feel is far more important? That separates entertainment and art.

Here in a couple weeks, I am going to see Cake for the first time in my life. Despite the importance this band and that album had in my development emotionally and personality-wise, I have never had the opportunity to see them. This has caused me a bit of consternation, however. What if the songs don’t vibe the same? What if those old songs hit like the Beastie Boys do now? Cringy, when I think back to the embarrassment I felt as a teenager at times. Listening to a sad song over and over again after being dumped thinking that it was the end of the world. Or maybe those songs will hit like Metallica still does–a timeless expression of a feeling that does not age.

The thing about a band like Cake is that they defy genre definition. This means they can be a pathway to many different types of music. There are elements of Hip Hop in Cake, Jazz, Guitar Rock, Post Punk, Country, White Boy funk. All exist in this very weird band.

I think that without them I may not have developed my palette of varied types of music and that would have been a shame. I have many friends that still to this day in our 40s still retain the personality that was defined by the genre of music they loved. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with this. To love art, any art, is a beautiful thing. To feel a connection with something so meaningful as to have had it leave a permanent mark on your personality is an amazing thing.

Cake taught me to listen to music rather than hear it. To try to derive meaning from artistic expression is fundamentally a human thing. Arguably one of the biggest elements that separate us from other fauna in this world. At least in my life no other band has engaged me in practicing that level of contemplative evaluation of the meaning of a song to me. I hope I get a moment to let the band know when I see them.

If you have never listened to them, I recommend you start with “B Sides and Other Rarities,” as it is a varying list of songs that represent every genre they touch. Then move to “Fashion Nugget” and then “Pressure Chief.” That said there is no such thing as a bad Cake album or a bad song. How rare is that?