A Mother–Daughter Playlist: How Music Keeps Us Connected Across Generations by Sophia Cocchiarella
A Playlist That Connects Generations
For many families, traditions show up in holidays, recipes, or heirlooms. For Sophia, one of our Summer ‘25 interns, the tradition has always been music.
From the time she was little, her mom filled the car with the voices of Paul Simon, Whitney Houston, Van Halen, Prince, Brandi Carlile, and The Indigo Girls. Some of Sophia’s earliest memories are of belting out the wrong lyrics to Steve Perry’s “Oh Sherrie” or Lionel Richie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling.” To her, those weren’t just songs—they were moments of joy, laughter, and togetherness.
Over the years, those musical threads only grew stronger. In 2010, her mom took her and her sister to see Brandi Carlile. At the time, the kids fell asleep before the show ended. But when they saw Brandi perform again in 2022, Sophia says she finally understood what it meant—not just as a concert, but as a reflection of her relationship with her mom, one that had been growing and evolving all along.
Now older, Sophia has begun introducing her mom to her own favorites: Taylor Swift (whom they’ve seen live together three times), Chappell Roan, and Maggie Rogers. Their playlists have become a mix of past and present, nostalgia and discovery. As she puts it, they’ve built a “love language” out of music.
Why Music Matters in Families
What Sophia’s story highlights is something many of us feel but don’t always name: music is more than entertainment. It’s memory, identity, and emotion wrapped into melody and lyric. It carries the power to:
Bring back the feeling of a childhood car ride.
Anchor us to the people who raised us.
Create new rituals that keep relationships alive.
Bridge generational gaps with joy and curiosity.
Music is a family language—one that doesn’t need perfect words to say, “We belong to each other.”
An Invitation
Sophia encourages us to try something simple: make a shared playlist with a parent, child, or loved one. See what songs overlap. Notice the surprises. Let it be a conversation, not just a collection of tracks.
Because in the end, a playlist isn’t just a list of songs—it’s a record of who we are, who we’ve been, and how we stay connected.
