The Bangles, Black Swans,and the Beats of Change
- sanjanakrish
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
Some songs don’t just take you back — they remind you who you were, and how far you’ve travelled.
For those born in the seventies and eighties—Gen X and the Millennials—this was one of the songs we grew up listening to. The quirky signature hand movements, allegedly Egyptian, were such a fun step to add to our routine.
No house party was complete without it. Thinking about it now, I really did like The Bangles—the raspy voice of the lead singer hitting those high notes and the soulful, melancholic lyrics; it was incredibly magical.
Walking down the streets of a quiet neighbourhood in Bangalore with a Walkman and headphones, dressed casually in boyfriend jeans and a loose bubblegum-pink tee—this is what teen spirit smelled like back then.
The music scene has come a long way since those days. Who would have thought MTV would one day cease to exist? I was reading Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb a few days ago, and my mind instantly made the connection—the Black Swan, of course, being Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and all the other streaming platforms that flipped the music world on its head.
In my teens and well into my twenties, my music repertoire consisted mainly of Madonna—I had a serious girl crush on her growing up—Michael Jackson, and the kind of old-school rock that calmed the pent-up teenage indignation against the world. Papa Don’t Preach became my favourite refrain in my growing years, much to the chagrin of my exasperated parents. Now I look back at those years and think: how would you describe my parents’ parenting style today? I am not going down that road, thank you.
Over the years, my tastes have evolved into something far more eclectic: more bluesy, more hip-hop, more everything. At this point, my relationship with music is semi-demi-non-binary—fluid and always evolving. If that made an iota of sense, kudos… you are a genius reader!
Like the ever-shifting sand, one thing is for sure: change is constant. It permeates every pore of our existence.
To not accept it, and to live oblivious to the tectonic shifts around us, is a sure-shot way to fade into irrelevance, oblivion, and decay. Tradition provides an anchor, true, but clinging only to the old ways won’t carry us forward.
Change is ubiquitous. This very second, as I type out this blog, there’s someone somewhere ideating—dreaming up bigger ideas powerful enough to disrupt and reshape our lives. The smart move, much like choosing the right play in a chess game, is to lean into our strengths and use the widening repository of tools to avoid being checkmated.
Walk like an Egyptian, I say—but with more sway, more confidence, and a little more knowing.
In the end, we all keep walking and running—new pace, new VO₂ max—but walk, nonetheless, one must.
Molecularly Yours,
Sanjana
Curiously Irrepressible
"If I’ve made you curious, please click on the link above.Happy reading! 🌿
Yes. Our playlists evolved—from newspapers to algorithms—but the way we hold on to songs hasn’t. Each one still carries a memory, a moment, a version of us.