Some songs you love immediately.
And then there are some that quietly wait for you.
I've carried "What's the Matter Here?" with me since the 1980s. Back then, I loved its sound, its mood, and the feeling it left behind. Like many teenagers, I knew I liked it long before I understood why.
It wasn't until years later—well into the 1990s—that I truly heard it.
By then, I had lived a little more. I'd seen enough of the world to recognize that some stories don't stay inside songs. They unfold quietly in homes, behind closed doors, in conversations that never happen, and in the silences people learn to live with.
The song hadn't changed.
I had.
That's one of the remarkable things about music. It doesn't simply accompany our lives; it grows alongside them. A lyric that once passed unnoticed can become the line that stays with you for years. A song you danced to as a teenager can return decades later carrying an entirely different weight.
Perhaps that's why it has never really left me.
When I created my "What's the Matter Here?" design for my Songs I Survived High School With collection, I wasn't trying to illustrate the song or explain it. I wanted to preserve the feeling it still gives me—that quiet pause before asking a difficult question.
Sometimes the most powerful questions aren't the loudest ones.
Sometimes they're spoken gently.
Sometimes they're asked because someone finally chooses to notice.
Looking back now, I realize my collection isn't simply about the music that shaped my teenage years. It's also about the songs that continued teaching me long after high school ended.
Some songs don't belong to a particular decade.
They belong to every version of ourselves that was finally ready to hear them.
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