A few years ago, two teenaged brothers were made instantaneously, if briefly, famous when they posted a video of themselves reacting to their first time hearing Phil Collin’s “In the Air Tonight,” the ubiquitous 1980s hit that provided a spooky, drum-filled part of many of my late-night FM radio listening sessions. The kids’ reactions were so vigorously astonished, especially when the tone of the song shifts with that famous drum break, that it is not surprising the video became so popular. The brothers had inadvertently revealed an experience we all have over and over, especially when we’re young: the pure, unadulterated experience of discovering something amazing for the first time—the experience of wonder that can be repeated time and time again, but never really for the same thing twice. Unless someone performs magic, which is what those kids did. To watch them hear the Collins song for the first time was as close as we ourselves can come to hearing it for the first time again. And it was mighty close. Magic.

I have since found myself watching many similar reaction videos for other songs. The genre has proliferated online, but many of the people filming their reactions seem to stick to the same handful of songs. “Unchained Melody,” by the Righteous Brothers, is popular, as is AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” The Animals’ version of the classic folk song, “House of the Rising Sun,” is very well-liked. The most repeated song reaction, however, may be to Johnny Cash’s cover of the NIN song, “Hurt.” And rightly so. It is impossible not to react to this song and video. I am unembarrassed to admit that I easily get locked into long sessions of binge-watching these videos, much as I did when watching shows such as “Deadwood,” “Atlanta,” “The Wire,” and “Schitt’s Creek.” Not every episode is great, but the overall experience is quite worth squandering a few hours. I find this especially true when I’m feeling bleak and need to restore my faith in the world by witnessing others enjoy themselves.

These reaction videos are not always particularly insightful, and, yes, I do wonder how someone lived any time at all on earth without ever hearing Hank Williams sing “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” but they consistently remind me of both the social and restorative power of music—and what it feels like to discover a band or an album or a song or a radio station for the first time. But great music doesn’t require special insight, and the joy of discovery is visceral as much as it is intellectual. Sure, you can analyze music as much as you can analyze everything else on planet Earth, but the lasting thrill and the memory of our musical experiences don’t come from analysis; you get such things by hungrily devouring music in every direction as if your life depends on it. I’m certain mine did.

A few years ago I was in Portland, Oregon for work and stopped into Stumptown Coffee one morning with a friend. On a little table next to the counter several vinyl albums had been stacked for what I suppose you could call “effect.” The albums didn’t appear to be accompanied by a turntable, but had been converted instead into rotating artwork, which is not such a bad idea, since album covers are a form of artwork largely lost to the world of the 21st century. Many of my earliest memories were of the painted or photographed album covers owned by my parents or my older sisters. The cover of The Best of the Statler Bros. has as significant a place in my love of art as do the paintings of Edward Hopper. And the songs contained within are an indelible part of my earliest experiences of musical discovery. Among them are tales of love, of high school nostalgia, of a prostitute taking in a homeless young man, as well as my favorite, “New York City”—the tale of a man whose pregnant girlfriend escapes to the title city to have their child out of wedlock and out of view. “New York City” makes for heartbreaking listening, especially if you play it back-to-back with John Prine’s “Unwed Fathers,” a song that casts a similarly reproving eye toward men who refuse the responsibilities of fathering a child. All heavy-duty stuff for a five-year-old. It’s no surprise that my tastes still run toward somber folk songs and morality tales.

In steady rotation in my home when I was a child was perhaps the most lonesome country singer of them all, and the greatest moralist of the genre, Hank Williams. There on that table in that Portland coffee shop someone had propped-up a copy of the exact Hank Williams album that had introduced me to country music over forty years before: MGM Records SE-4168, The Very Best of Hank Williams, originally released in 1963. I had not seen it in decades, but the yellow cover with a simple black sketch of Williams, accompanied by the song titles in the bottom corner, instantly transported me in memory and mood to those very young days spent listening to the album over and over on our console turntable. That one album, containing some of the greatest songs ever written—songs like “Ramblin’ Man” that still evoke a torrent of emotion in me no matter how many years or listenings pass—was the thin vinyl foundation on which most of my life (both musical and non-musical) was built. And I was as excited to see it there as I would be to see any long lost friend that I have missed.

Just about everyone loves music, it’s true, but you occasionally meet folks who, when asked what kind of music they like or who their favorite musical artist is, say, “Oh, I don’t really have any favorites; I just listen to whatever.” Really? Maybe it’s just the pressure of the question, or maybe they really don’t care that much about music, but I have never understood how that can be true—how the thing that feels to me like it’s borne from tiny rhythms in my blood stream can be of so little importance to some people, all of whom in fact have blood running through their veins. What is merely background noise to some is a whole life philosophy to me. I can tell you what song I first remember singing (Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line”), who I saw live for the first time on my own and of my own choosing (REO Speedwagon at the Ohio State Fair), what song was playing at a high school dance when my first love broke my heart (George Michael’s “Father Figure”), what album I first called my own (Bob Seger’s Nine Tonight), the song from that album that started me imagining what I might get up to in high school (“Night Moves”), what song was playing at the Washington DC Best Western where I was staying for my 6th grade trip, and that instantly made me aware there were beings from other planets making music on this one (Prince’s “Little Red Corvette”), the song that made me crush on a rock goddess for the first, but not last, time (Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll), though it might have been Deborah Harry (I had a heart of glass in those days), and the song I first got high to (appropriately enough, Steve Earle’s “Copperhead Road”). And I’ve only scratched a little at the surface of the 1980s here. The encyclopedic list of musical associations goes on and on, and I still add to it every day. How could someone not jump, jive, and wail at each thrilling opportunity to hear a new song or a new artist?

We grow old and we tend to grow a bit judgmental, prone to saying things like, “Music was so much better when I was young.” In this we make the unforgivable mistake of forgetting the terrible music of our youth that we often loved. Paper Lace’s “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” comes to mind, and the most saccharine and maudlin mess ever committed to vinyl, Bobby Goldsboro’s “Honey.” There truly is enough bad music to go around for ever generation—and good music too. If you don’t believe the latter, listen to Arlo Park’s “Black Dog.” In fact, listen to the whole album. Arguments over what generation had the best music are an exercise in futility and in absurdity. Because the music really isn’t the issue at all. What matters is that we experience the music, and how that feels hasn’t changed since our ancestors beat rocks together millennia ago to create the first throbbing drum break, as they sang, “I can feel it coming in the air tonight…” Off in the shadows, two kids threw up their hands excitedly and blessed us all in doing so.

Playlists for this post can be found on Apple and on Spotify.