1996: Songs from the Year I Grew Up (Sort Of)

Writing challenge — 12 songs from the most pivotal year of my life

Photo from author’s private collection.

This writing challenge comes from Pierce McIntyre and it sure got me thinking. What was the most pivotal year of my life, and could I make it coincide with a year of excellent music?

Heck, yeah! 1996!

In the end, I decided to write about the music I listened to in 1996. Although some of these songs weren’t necessarily released in 1996, many of them come from the mid-90s.

I was 21 in 1996 — a bespectacled law school student who lived with her parents and whose entire social life consisted of going to the shopping centre to see a movie a couple times a year. I sat at home reading classic literature, studying and dreaming of a bigger life.

This “bigger life” consisted of indie rock, nightclubs, glitter and boys. By the end of 1996, my dream had come true.

I felt I’d “arrived” as a young adult and a “normally-functioning” social person. I’d moved to a share house, gotten a pixie haircut and spent all my sparing time in indie nightclubs or getting ready to go said clubs.

As a 21-year-old, that was all I wanted in life.