Travel Music, Montages, and Memories

Imagine a late-night train ride. Maybe you’re on a subway, or a bullet train, or maybe it’s the Alaskan Railroad. You’re weary from a day’s travel, you have your backpack at your feet, and your headphones are in. Now imagine that train is a plane, and you’re coming in for a landing over a sparkling river in the early morning. You turn off your inflight movie and settle in to some music as the landing gear creaks open. Perhaps instead, you’re driving a car on a distant, winding road, and you punch the radio on. Or maybe, you’re just on a walk, and you need to tune your mind out for a bit. There’s something powerful about the pairing of music and travel that’s difficult to explain. Why do we make playlists for road trips, evenings at the airport, or dewy mornings at campsites? What is it about music in the background of our adventures that makes our surroundings feel more important?

Since we’re talking about the association of music with travel, I can’t help but bring up The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, directed by Ben Stiller. If you know me, then you know I have a weird fascination and emotional connection to this movie. Walter (also Ben Stiller) lives a boring, monotonous office job as an asset manager at a magazine, and while searching for a precious photo negative, he ventures to extreme locales, jumps out of a helicopter in Greenland, out-drives a volcano eruption in Iceland, and plays soccer in the Himalayas, all while gaining a new appreciation of the world. The writing is goofy, the characters aren’t amazing, and the plot sounds pretty standard. But what makes this movie so special is that the theme of finding courage, choosing exploration, and uncovering enthusiasm for life is not always spelled out in words. Instead, all it takes is a few gorgeous travel montages, with the most perfectly selected music playing in the background, to stir up some wild passion within me. Walter is alone for most of these moments, so no dialogue is exchanged. The cinematography is great, but for me, these are musical scenes more than anything. The soundtrack is one that leaves me not only moved, but desperate to get out into the world. In other words, the music makes the movie’s point for it; you’re just watching the characters experience its message. Just as we take inspiration from the music we listen to as we travel, it’s almost like Walter is hearing his own soundtrack.

One of the reasons I could rant about this movie all day is because every time I see it, I feel like it’s talking directly to me.

In one of the most iconic scenes, he’s just bartered with some local Icelandic kids for a longboard after his borrowed bike got smashed. He has a cut on his forehead, unkempt facial hair, a ripped sweater, and nothing but a tiny drawstring bag on his back. When he sees his destination far away in a valley, he (very symbolically) rips his tie into strips, ties flat stones to his hands as padding, and downhill longboards through gorgeous Iceland scenery, grinning and laughing as he rockets along to Junip’s “Far Away.” In scenes like this, music accompanies Walter along his journey, and the audience gets to watch him grow through his experiences, rather than

merely through conversation. The soundtrack reflects his feelings and internal state, and inspires us to create our own spontaneous and even harrowing journeys. It means something to us, because it means something for Walter.

When I experience something sublime, or come across a landscape that I know I may never see again, the music that I listen to in that moment is important to me. It encapsulates my feelings — something a camera can’t do.

One of the reasons I could rant about this movie all day is because every time I see it, I feel like it’s talking directly to me. I often struggle with over-anticipating new experiences and avoiding the chaos that comes with adventurous decisions, so I won’t pretend that the film didn’t partially inspire my own trip to Iceland last summer. I was on my own for 10 days, in a little car, staying in hostels and people’s farmhouses in the middle of nowhere. But I did have cell service, and that meant I had music. Throughout that whole trip, I lived my own little travel montage scenes, with my own soundtrack I had created (think “Figure 8” by Peach Pit, “Blue Bell” by Golden Daze, and “It Must Be Easy” by the Fruit Bats). Maybe it’s a little dramatic, but the addition of music seemed to accentuate my surroundings and connect me to the world. I felt empowered and emboldened, and at times, surreal. Music, both in real life and in film and TV, also has a profound effect on memory, at least for me. The reason why this is important for traveling is because there are some moments that can’t just be captured by a photo or explained verbally. When I experience something sublime, or come across a landscape that I know I may never see again, the music that I listen to in that moment is important to me. It encapsulates my feelings — something a camera can’t do. This is why films are choosy about the music they use during travel montages: sometimes displaying an incredible landscape is not enough to make the audience feel a specific way. Just as I may think of a certain scene every time I hear the song it accompanied, I listen to music as I travel to form more vivid and important memories associated with certain songs. When a song comes on that encapsulates what I’m feeling, or what I want to feel, I know a memory is being formed. There’s something magical about that moment, not just because it’s happening, but because we know that we will relive it again every time we hear those songs.

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