Play Count: 513
Though the play count for this song may seem unbelievably high, I urge my readers to trust me that this number is in fact legitimate. After much contemplation and brainstorming about what my next blog post should be about, I realized that it was a no-brainer. The song Human by Jon McLaughlin, each time I listen to it, brings me back memories of a certain feeling that I can only do my best to describe.
Though it may sound childish (being that I am an 18 year old college student), I have attended sleep away camp for the past ten summers of my life. At Camp Kinder Ring, I learned to grow and develop into the person that I am today. Kinder Ring is the place where I met my ten best friends, I learned to love to shower with flip flops, I became able to feel confident enough to portray the weirdest sides of myself to my bunkmates, and I began to understand what it really felt like to have a home away from home.
You are probably questioning what Camp Kinder Ring has to do with Jon McLaughlin's music and lyrics. My answer to this question is...everything.
When I was a "teen" (this is what the 15-16 year old age group is titled) in the summer of 2007, our division was responsible for writing a song together and performing it in front of the camp before an important ceremony. Every year, the teens are given this responsibility and it is taken extremely seriously. Though it seems like a simple task, the song choice is extremely important because it is a melody that should be memorable and significant, as this song represents a milestone in our camp experience. After several hours of bickering and listening to an array of songs, we had finally agreed that this song was perfect.
We all sat down and wrote meaningful lyrics to Jon McLaughlin's melody. The lyrics represented the entire division, all 26 of us. The song involved lines that described our anticipation and butterflies that we had felt when we first drove through the gates of Camp Kinder Ring on the first day of camp. The song then went into detail describing how we were able to overcome our greatest fears and make friendships that will last us a lifetime within the gates of our summer "fantasy land". We coined this term because we all agree that the things that we have experienced together were nothing short of magical. As we wrote the lyrics all together, we pressed pause, rewind, and play countless times to make sure that our words matched the melody. We chose every word carefully, and we practiced singing our new alma-mater until it sounded flawless. As the ceremony approached in August, we all were anxious to give back to Kinder Ring what it had given to us. We sang about our friendship, our love, and our spirit for the place that we all we all had grown up and learned to accept the worst and the best in each other and also in ourselves.
I title my post "McLaughter and Tears" because the feeling that this song brings to me each time I listen to it I can only describe as bittersweet. Each time I hear the melody, I think of my camp experience and how fast time truly does pass us by. I think of the happiness I experienced on the first day of camp, and the sadness that I felt on the last night in August. It feels like just yesterday I was eight years old and watching the older girls sing their song to all of camp, and I can remember only hoping to be them one day. The incoming summer of 2010 is going to be the first summer where I do not return to 335 Sylvan Lake Road; Hopewell Junction, New York with my ten best friends. However, even though we live far apart and do not always get to see each other, I will always have Jon McLaughlin in my i-tunes library just a click away.
