A love letter to music in my four years at Georgetown

I’m listening to the fifth-anniversary edition of Conan Gray’s Kid Krow (2020) in the bathroom of my Jes Res, the senior year apartment I share with four of my closest friends. I’m in tears as I silently sing along to the newly released, live version of “The Cut That Always Bleeds.” While I’m not currently suffering from any gaping, love-induced wounds, hearing this version fills me with something deeply wistful. When I first became obsessed with this song, I was singing it in my New South dorm freshman year after my sister and I saw Gray in concert. I slid in socks across the vinyl flooring while “Maniac” played, and sat on the HFSC balcony washing out the sounds of cars with “People Watching.” Two of my earliest pieces for the Voice were about Conan Gray, actually. You could say freshman spring was my “Conan semester.”

Taylor Swift released Midnights (2022) in my sophomore fall. I sat on the bottom bunk of my Kennedy dorm, parsing through the album track by track while my best friend slept in the bed above me. The moment I reached the bridge of “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” everything ground to a halt: “From sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes / I gave my blood, sweat, and tears for this.” I had been struggling to stay afloat that semester, organic chemistry wrecking my relationship with academic validation. But any time I played that song, I felt cradled in its authenticity. I would listen to it as I sat by Dahlgren Chapel at night, using it like a mantra before exams: “Take the moment and taste it / You’ve got no reason to be afraid.” That song will always take me back to sophomore fall, but it doesn’t reopen old scars. Now, “You’re On Your Own, Kid” is recognition of how I survived that semester, and how proud I am of the care I put into my academic career.

In January of my sophomore spring, I realized I hadn’t befriended anyone in the Voice’s Leisure section—at least, not enough to talk to them outside of Leavey 424. I decided to attend my first Voice party, and looking back through my camera roll now, there are two videos from that night that capture the moment everything changed. In the first, I’m singing Taylor Swift’s “Better Than Revenge” at the top of my lungs, surrounded by four girls that would become my best friends in Leisure. In the second, we’re screaming the bridge to “Cruel Summer” smiling ear-to-ear. It was the first time at Georgetown that I felt part of a community, a corner of campus where my love of music and film would be reciprocated with the same zealousness. Queuing up “Better Than Revenge” became tradition at every Voice party moving forward, and I screamed along with those same girls every time.

When I first discovered Maisie Peters’s “History of Man” in junior spring, I played the song on repeat for weeks. I sang it to myself in my Vil B bedroom and soaked the lyrics into my skin as I crossed the courtyard to get to class. That was a “Maisie semester” for me. “There It Goes” kicked off my mornings, telling me that the universe was shifting in my favor. “The Good Witch” served as a reminder that I am constantly surrounded by love. And I turned to “Run” when I wanted to echo that boys suck. The Good Witch (2023) became the backing track to that period of my life—to no one’s surprise, I listened to “History of Man” a grand total of 182 times.

There was more defining music, of course. So much more, I can’t keep count. There was Noah Kahan’s Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever) (2023) when I returned to campus after losing my grandfather in junior fall. The Percy Jackson musical when my friend and I worked on orgo lab reports at three in the morning. Rihanna whenever my roommates and I got ready to go out, outfit compliments flying left and right. And Griff’s Vertigo (2024) as I watched the sunset from our Jes Res window, a view of the Potomac I had been craving since freshman year.

My relationship with music changed entirely in college. Whether I was dancing, singing, sleeping, crying, or shoveling oatmeal in my mouth as I walked to class, my Spotify got me through it all. I had songs curated for when I needed to concentrate in a Lau cubicle, or when I needed to feel understood. I put together playlists for myself and others and sat on oh-so-many couches with friends singing new releases. Paired with every song is a distinct memory of a “who” and “where” at Georgetown, little landmarks for me to remember my college years. More than that, though, they remind me of how much I have grown since I moved into that New South dorm. So thank you to music, and thank you to Georgetown. I’ll remember you long after I leave the Hilltop.

Love, Nikki

Nikki’s top 10 most influential albums of college (in chronological order):