A Broad Abroad
By Sydney Weiner
Bars, late night ubers, cafés, tour buses: there’s no place where I won’t whip out my phone, swipe down to the menu, and turn on Shazam. I’ve been using it for years, and it was especially helpful while traveling to countries with a foreign language. I never expected to find so many songs with such a similar sound to what I’m used to, and I loved discovering new genres that I could never even have imagined existing. When I listen to these songs, I’m transported back to specific moments of one of my favorite semesters in college. Below, I’ve featured some specific songs and their backstories. I hope you form great memories with them too.
Song: Holiday
Artist: Dizzee Rascal
City Shazamed: Dublin, Ireland
What was happening: I was practically fighting for my life with my friend Charlotte in a Trinity College pub (Doyle’s) as everyone was shoving around us. The bridge for this song takes me to the moment we had finally ordered our tequila sodas from the bar and walked to the main dancefloor. Before we had gone in, a local student had asked me if I had a light. I tried joking that while I didn’t have one, I had a flint which we could strike on the metal gate next to him to get some sparks going. He turned to his friend and said “Americans are so dumb.”
Song: Kig Op Fra Gulvet
Artist: Blæst
City Shazamed: Copenhagen, Denmark
What was happening: My friends and I were at a club full of strangers and no one seemed particularly interested in chatting with us. The basement was one of the sweatiest I’ve ever been in, but that sure didn’t stop us from singing our hearts out during “Gimme Gimme Gimme” by Abba.
Song: Jet Boy Jet Girl
Artist: Elton Motello
City Shazamed: Madrid, Spain
What was happening: If I’ve ever felt like I’ve been in an 80s dance movie, it was at La Via Lactea in Madrid, sipping my €4 cider near the billiards table that I had successfully ordered in Spanish. I told my host parents (some of the coolest people I’ve ever met) about it the next night, and of course my host Dad had already been there.
Song: Forever in Love
Artist: Sylver
City Shazamed: Prague, Czechia
What was happening: The most Europop of all the songs on the playlist. I shazamed this one in an uber speeding from the Prague airport to my friend Julia’s dorm. The driver couldn’t really speak English and I can’t speak Czech so we kind of just jammed. I had barely caught my flight (my flight from Madrid seemed to have landed at the furthest possible gate at the Munich airport where none of the automatic walkways were working) and the song perfectly captures the kind of exhausted exhilaration that a semester studying abroad is all about–the middle seat on cheap flights, sweating through multiple layers so your backpack doesn’t need to be checked, a feeling of wonder that so many countries can be so close to one another, and a question from a European trying to make you feel ashamed about being American that makes it clear they don’t really understand America.
Songs: París Norðursins and Leiðin okkar allra
Artists: Prins Póló and Hjálmar
City Shazamed: Reykjavik, Iceland
What was happening: Both of these come from my tour guide in Iceland on a northern lights tour. Unfortunately for me (and my family who I had convinced to come visit me there), it was a terrible week for seeing them, as it snowed the whole time (something my beach-loving sister was not pleased about). There’s something about a late night ride on a warm bus with strangers who you’ve just met and may never see again. How quickly you all connect over the smallest similarity. It’s one of my favorite parts of being human.
