Something Beautiful

2002 was the first year I heard Something Corporate. "If You C Jordan" was on MTV and my best friend Autumn and I thought it was the greatest. We called a lot of people "little redhead bitches" after that.

In 2005, my best friend Eric sent me "Konstantine", by one-and-a-half times through I had found God again. Later that year, my friend Leeann loaned me her copy of "North". Immediately I realized that "Down" was my anthem and "The Runaway" had the best vocal pattern I'd ever heard. When my mom's laptop caught fire in our house and the toxic smoke forced us to escape to a hotel for a few days, we listened to that album every single car ride.

Eric sent me all of "Everything In Transit" (from Jack's Mannequin, what was then Andrew McMahon's side project) via AOL Instant Messenger in the beginning of 2006. When I got my first car, it was the first CD I ever listened to while driving. Jack's Mannequin performed on "One Tree Hill" that same year. I think "The Mix Tape" was my first favorite track on the album, but it's so hard to remember. Every.single.song on that CD has claimed the title of "favorite" at one time or another (currently it's "La La Lie").

I was in Borders that first summer when I bought "Leaving Through the Window", SoCo's 2002 album. It was the only CD in my car that whole summer, serenading me on my way to summer school, to pick up my boyfriend, to drive home minutes before curfew.

In October 2008, at a particularly timely time, Jack's Mannequin released "The Glass Passenger". I couldn't believe that someone could make their fight with leukemia come alive as well as Andrew did in "Caves". How could he know my fantasies so well as to capture them perfectly in "Drop Out- The So Unknown"? Later that month, Noah surprised me with tickets to see Andrew perform. He drove me two and a half hours away on a Sunday night to see my hero, stood in the back for over two hours, and then drove me back while I slept in the front seat, remembering, in detail, every lyric sung. That night I watched in awe as Andrew sang and played and walked around on top of the holiest piano I'd ever seen. He played while I watched mouth agape in awe. Some guy next to me pulled my hair back from my ear and whispered, "They're songs you dance to at your wedding." It was surreal to stand next to a stranger who understand the most fundamental marital law: a marriage is invalid if the words of Andrew McMahon aren't present.

The next time I was in the same room as Andrew was just last February. My brother and I stood feet from the stage and jumped and sang and stared. Seeing the words that had fixed me, had pulled me up and out, come out of Andrews mouth, the notes come from his fingers, was a remarkable experience, one that stayed with me fully for days.

I just found out that SoCo played "Konstantine" at Bamboozle Left in March, the show I fought with myself over going to, and ultimately decided it was too expensive. If I had known they would be playing that song, my song, I would have tunneled there to see it. I was crushed. Until...yesterday I got a text from my brother Max. "SoCo is having a summer tour. They'll be at the Marquee on August 22nd. We're going, right?" Like he even had to ask.