“My headphones, they saved my life.
Your tape, it lulled me to sleep, to sleep, to sleep” — Bjork

I’m not sure if I can claim, like Bjork, that my headphones saved my life, but if I did, it wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration. During those times when life has been hard, headphones have offered an escape. A place away from the worries of the world, a place where there is only the joy and embrace (or Embrace, if you’re that way inclined) that music offers.

The first time I found this place was during my typically difficult teenage years. It was not, it’s fair to say, the favourite time of my life. I would stay up late, fretting, full of adolescent angst, unprepared to face the following day. Being awake later than any one else in the house meant I couldn’t just blast music out of my stereo, so I would put on my bulky plastic 90s headphones and play the angry grunge music that I mainly listened to in those years, Nirvana, Hole and Smashing Pumpkins, a howl of rage to sooth my ragged soul.

As I moved into adulthood, or something approximating it, I couldn’t bear to be without music for even a moment, so my Discman became my constant companion. It seems ridiculous now that I would lug around piles of CDs in my backpack, when I now have all the world’s music in an oblong in my pocket, but lug I did. As I crawled slowly around Manchester on the Magic Bus (a very slow, cheap bus favoured by students — not actually magic), or wandered through the streets of Levenshulme and Withington, that sweet, sweet music pumped straight into my ears, and shut out the world outside. My life was happier, somewhat, but I was still not entirely comfortable with myself and my place in the world. Looking back now, it seems obvious that this was a way of disengaging, or at least only engaging with real life when I absolutely had to, but I didn’t think of it that way then. I just thought “I love music, I’m going to listen to it whenever I can.

As time went on, the technology changed, as discman became MP3 player became smartphone, and bulky headphones became discreet in ear buds (and eventually air pods). My taste in music changed too, passing through an emo phase, a techno phase, a folk phase, and many other phases besides. I gathered bits of each along the way, although admittedly some more than others. One thing didn’t change though. When I needed to shut out the world, my headphones were there. When Sunday evening came round, and I was dreading the next day, going into a job I hated, on came the headphones and into the music I disappeared. In bed, in the dark, with the headphones, it really seemed that me and the music was all that there is, was and would ever be. And some records, subtle, intricate ones, really rewarded this way of listening. Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakmaoto’s Insen was a particular favourite at this time.

When Monday morning did come round, usually after far too little sleep, I would get up, get on the bus into work, and put those headphones on again. I would blast Rage Against The Machine, or something equally loud and angry into my ears, channeling my sadness through their, well, rage to make me feel that little bit better about facing the new week.

As I tentatively approached my thirties, my life changed, very much for the better, as I met the woman who would become my wife. We lived hundreds of miles apart for most of the first year of our relationship, and on those long train journeys my headphones proved invaluable again (an incidental discovery at that time was that Joanna Newsom’s stunning triple album Have One On Me was exactly the same length as the train journey from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston). The songs were different now though, often songs of love, sometimes even ‘love CDs’, the mix CDs of songs we had put together and sent to each other in the post. My headphones were now less about shutting out the world, more about anticipating the new life I was heading towards.

It was rarer now that I felt the need to shut the world out. I may even have wanted to let it in. Whereas once I would never leave the house without headphones on, I now, sometimes at least, liked to take in the sights and sounds of the world, even if those might only be the sights and sounds of the number 29 bus.

A few years later, we were living in a new (old) city, expecting our first child, and everything changed again. When you’re a parent of young children, hiding from the world isn’t an option (well it is, but not one that will make you very popular with those children or your partner). You feel the need to be alert to the cries and wails, and later the requests and demands, of your progeny. You can’t simply put on your headphones, crank the music up and ignore them. My version of losing myself in music now is, on a rare evening alone, putting on a vinyl LP, a quiet one, maybe Low or Sufjan Stevens, after the kids have gone to bed.

I still have headphones of course, mainly for use on the way to work, but I don’t dread work in the way that I did when I was younger, and I don’t need angry music to channel my own pain. I’m listening to music just for the sheer joy of it, something to put a little spring in my step as I stroll through campus, to make those feet move a little faster and lighter.

Even now though, I do occasionally miss those times when I could use my headphones to hide from the world. Deep down, I think what I’m really missing is the concept of my time being completely my own, not having to think about anything or anyone else, at least for a bit. But then I remember that the times when my time was completely my own were the worst times of my life, and now is the time that I am happiest. Once upon a time my headphones may have saved my life, but perhaps I don’t need saving any more.