One thing I learned fairly early on in my college radio career is that there’s ultimately too much new music coming out to keep up with it all on your own. That was the case in the late eighties and early nineties, before the grunge-led boom in “alternative music” occurred in rough symmetry with greater affordability for more DIY-inclined bands to produce and distribute their own material. When I later started my second, slightly different life on the left end of the dial, the number of new CDs that flooded into the station each and every week, often from largely unknown bands, was staggering. So as I played catch-up with the world of college rock, I did what had served me so well in the years earlier: I looked to my friends to help guide me to the music that was most worthy of attention. That fact that I was now looking to music fans who were about a generation younger than me didn’t change the equation.

In part because I was paying keen attention to the songs that were played with happy regularity by certain DJs, I have incredibly strong associations between the people and the songs. This has long been the case–I had, and still have, a handful of songs that I can place with each of the key peers from my student days as easily as I can conjure up the features of their faces in my mind–but there’s a different feeling that accompanies the association when it comes to students that I was working with in advisory, instructional and mentorship roles. It’s a nostalgic melancholy and pride, I guess. Clichéd as this sentiment may be, I imagine it’s somewhat akin to what a parent feels after their kid had grown up and gone off on their own to tackle the great big world. Just like my cohorts from those earlier years, I think of those students as my friends, but I have to concede that there’s something different there, often something more.

I bring this up because I’ve been thinking about my friend Holly a lot lately, the first of two extraordinary people with that name that I had the pleasure and privilege of working with at the station (I knew a pretty great Holly back in college, too; I’ve had a lot of luck with that name). The whole time I knew her, she restlessly sought inspiration, which made her a good person to look to for music recommendations. She was infectiously exuberant about the things that she liked and uncommonly thoughtful about the material that let her down or, for that matter, the instances when her own efforts weren’t quite up to snuff. She was forthright, generous and shrewdly intelligent, all qualities that I know carry over to today. Like many of the students I worked with, I was constantly learning from her.

Unlike some of the other songs that call her to mind, I don’t think I would have found my way to the various music on Figurine’s album The Heartfelt without her. Hell, when she first told me about the album, I think all of us at the station were still confused about what was the band name and what was the album title. In our defense, The Heartfelt is a great name for a band, and Figurine is a great title for an album. I don’t even remember any specifics about the conversation, except that her clear enthusiasm compelled me to listen to a release that I otherwise would have glossed over. I’m not even sure if Holly had a preferred track from the album, but “Let’s Make Our Love Song” is the one that I landed on as a favorite.

I’m not regularly in contact with Holly these days, a routine development given the passage of years and the notably different spots on American terrain where we reside. Luckily, she has a notable talent for social media, so I’ve been able to follow her personal and professional progression through the various digital dispatches she sends out. She grew up a lot during the three years that we worked together directly, and naturally she’s grown even more in the time since, taking on a vast array of challenges and opportunities with admirable self-awareness, strength and bravery. The reason I’ve been thinking of her lately is that she became a mother for the first time a few weeks ago when she and her husband welcomed a handsome baby boy into the world. While it’s an admittedly discomfiting reminder that it’s been over a decade since I first met a blonde teenager, buzzing around campus on a golf cart for her summer job and eying me, this new guy, with understandable skepticism, I’m so happy for her, even from a distance, as she takes this next major step in a life that’s been splendidly rife with them.

That is one lucky kid, I know that. Someday his mom is going to teach him a helluva leprechaun dance.

Figurine, “Let’s Make Our Love Song”

(Disclaimer: As is always the case, the song for this feature was selected in part because it appears to me that it is physically out of print and, therefore, currently unavailable for purchase in a means that will provide due compensation to both the artist and the proprietor of your favorite local, independently-owned record store. As is always the case, if I am contacted by someone who has due authority to request or demand its removal from this corner of the interweb, and that individual or heartless corporate entity makes such a request or demand, I will promptly and gladly comply.)