In November of 2024, I spent a weekend in Ireland to visit my older brother who was in graduate school at Trinity College.
It was a chilly day; I remember. Looking out onto the courtyard of the College from my brother's dorm, I could see a hodgepodge of tourists, students and professors roam the space below, dressed in an assortment of large coats to protect themselves from the Irish weather.
My brother's dorm was compact and humble, but it made up for that in its warmth. We spent that first night in Ireland sharing music we had been listening to recently. Eventually, he played one song that really stuck with me though. It was Leonard Cohen's poetic "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong."
So we sat in the small dorm, with a single lamp light in the corner illuminating the room and listened to Cohen’s recollection of his life's tragic memories.
And it made me think, memories are what make art meaningful.
On a train headed north to Belfast, I stared out the window onto the beautiful Irish countryside.
The leaves had mostly fallen from the trees; I remember. And as I stared out the window, I could see beautifully quaint villages lining the tracks.
Due to booking issues, our reserved seats were taken, which forced us to stand in the dining car for the entirety of the ride, but I didn’t mind. It gave us a different perspective for the ride.
I remember hearing Leonard Cohen pick at his guitar two trains cabin down from me. His voice was distant but resonated throughout the locomotive. Transitioning from A to Bm, D and back to A as he sang about a lost lover. His voice sent a visible shiver throughout the cabins.
“I suppose that he froze when the wind took your clothes, and I guess he just never got warm,” Cohen sang into his microphone. “But you stand there so nice in your blizzard of ice – oh please, let me come into the storm.”
The train was calm.
The microphone cut off, as I removed my headphones. I could no longer hear the man a couple train cabins down. Instead, the train's wheels ground against the tracks, going at breakneck speeds.
The beauty of art resides in the humanity exhibited through its creation. Being able to feel the emotions attached to the creation and apply them to your own life and memories is art’s inherent purpose. So in a time where it seems like humanity is constantly being told of its unimportance and lack of genuine purpose, it’s invaluable to look at our humanistic ability to express ourselves through creative expression as one of the most fundamental reasons human existence matters.
No robot can experience true heartbreak. In the same way, no artificial intelligence could tell you what love feels like.
Memories are what make art meaningful. Being able to experience emotion is what makes art meaningful. Being able to open your eyes and breathe brisk autumn air this fall is what makes art meaningful. The world is constantly telling you what makes art meaningful subtly in everyone's day-to-day life.
I sang, "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong," back in May at a house show my friends and I hosted, and it invoked the same memory of the train ride through Ireland's countryside that morning.
The smell of coffee steaming behind the counter as the dining cabin's floor shook under my feet, and the beautiful green pastors seemingly never-ending were glistening from the previously fallen rain.
I remember.
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