Sounds Like Love

“Whenever I was stuck in Los Angeles traffic and homesick in a way that ate down to my bones, I’d put on my favorite song and turn it up so loud it rattled my soul, and sometimes I could trick myself into thinking I was sitting there at the bar, my skin rosy from the hot August sun, listening to that music.”

Joni Lark’s memories of the Revelry establish the setting’s impact on her psyche. Even when she’s thousands of miles away in LA, her mind transports her to her parents’ music venue. The diction she uses to describe her memories at the Rev reflects her deep connection to the place. Words like “rattled,” “trick,” and “rosy” affect the physiological impact of Joni’s recollections. She notes that her homesickness “ate down to [her] bones”—figurative language that conveys deep physical and emotional longing.

“It was why I moved out to Los Angeles in the first place, to chase my dreams of being a songwriter. You didn’t relocate to one of the most expensive cities in the world to wait tables and rub elbows with greasy music moguls if you weren’t a little bit enchanted by the idea of it. And you certainly didn’t write hit songs about girlfriends in suede heels and endless summer nights if you were that jaded.”

Joni’s reflections on her life in LA convey her love for songwriting and desire for meaning and purpose. Joni knows that she relocated to California to “chase her dreams,” but this passage affects a defensive tone. She insists that she’s “a little bit enchanted” by love and glamour despite her internal confusion. Her attempts to convince herself that her life in the music industry is still what she wants convey her yet-unacknowledged insecurity about her future. This passage establishes facets of Joni’s internal conflict, which she’ll have to confront in subsequent chapters.