Hold On To The Feelin'

It goes on and on and on and on. . .

It's when a song becomes emblematic of a collective time and place and experience that it becomes the soundtrack to memory. It's a perfectly serviceable concoction of notes and instruments that suddenly becomes much more than that, because it is the context around which we will forever frame our ideas of who we were at a given time.

A smell of wine and cheap perfume. . .

Once the song is set, it becomes the key to everything else about that memory: the aroma, the visuals, the taste and the feeling. It is emotional propaganda. It's goosebumps and a wet pressure behind the eyes.

Everybody wants a thrill. . .

It seems like disappointment was the most common reaction to the last episode of The Sopranos. There's nothing a collective experience needs more than closure. But such a pretty package does not exist in life, nor did it have a place in David Chase's idea of a dramatically real ending. And so viewers stared at their screens during the last scene, taking in everything, perched on the edge of their seats, with the beats of their hearts palpable. Then what? Then nothing.

Oh, the movie never ends. . .

When Journey's Don't Stop Believin' is on the radio, it comes back to me--the feeling of not wanting something to end, not knowing what's next. It's the end of spring. It's watching from the outside--where the evening air circulates in a faint, warm breeze--and seeing only a blue glow through an open window.

Hold onto the feelin'. . .

In 1999, I was a junior in college. I first watched the show in my semi-boyfriend's room at his fraternity house. Brothers would pile in, squeezing onto fifth-hand couches and flat futons, to watch this new favorite. The year was about freedom and about the novelty of all that was ahead.

The semi-boyfriend had taken on husband status by 2007, when we watched the final episode in the living room of our home. Our daughter was asleep in her crib upstairs. The year was about family and the uncertainty of all that was ahead.

It goes on and on and on and on. . .

I thought that the ending of The Sopranos was good as it happened. In looking back on it, it was perfection.