We Are All Rivers, A Journey through Song: Part 5 of the Camino Series

“What song keeps you going when life gets hard?” we asked dozens of pilgrims we met along the Camino de Santiago. Behind every song is a story of our shared humanity, flowing rivers merging into one.

There are no strangers on the Camino—only friends waiting to be found. The kind of friends who will lend you a hand on a particularly tough ascent or a spare water bottle when yours has run dry or the gift of their story: how they came to walk some 240 kilometers across Portugal and Spain on the Camino De Santiago. And as we soon discovered, they also have a song playing in their heads or in their earbuds, a song that is as much a lifeline as a good pair of hiking shoes and a decent rain jacket.

A Dutch nurse walking solo would “Follow the Sun;” an Australian woman who recently lost her dad greeted each morning as a “Beautiful Day;” a recently retired 62-year-old American woman was at last “Born to Run.” An exuberant Brazilian host and musician revealed his sensitive side with “Everybody Hurts.” A young female Czech professor felt “Unstoppable” even sitting in the pouring rain as we hastily finished a coffee. A British nurse felt a calling to become a psychotherapist, ready to put “Skin in the Game.”

And on and on they came—the songs and the stories. Forty songs. Forty tender, sturdy hearts. Twenty nationalities across Europe, South America, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada. When Marielle came up with the idea of crowdsourcing a playlist on our 15-day 300 kilometer journey by asking other pilgrims the question: “What song keeps you going when life gets hard?,” we didn’t know how that would play out. We asked the question of other pilgrims, hosts at guesthouses, waiters at restaurants, and our own nearest and dearest. But as two people for whom music has always been the conduit to our joy, sorrow, longing and all our deepest emotions, we suspected we would find at least some kindred souls along the Way. We were not disappointed.

As Mark Nepo writes in The Book of Awakening, our wise counselor on the journey:

We all share the same river. It flows beneath us and through us, from one dry heart to the next…It makes the Earth one living thing.

The whole of life has a power to soften and open us against our will, to irrigate our spirits, and in those moments, we discover the tears, the water from within, are a common blood, mysterious and clear. We may speak different languages and live very different lives, but when that deep water swells to the surface, it pulls us to each other.

We share the same river, and where it enters, we lose our stubbornness the way fists wear open when held under in the stream of love.

On day ten, we encountered some pretty steep hills along the 12-mile route between Redondela and Pontevedra in Portugal. You’re basically climbing up a mountain at the start, much of it through beautiful forested areas. This is going to test my 64-year-old body, I thought. But good company, and music, saved us. As we started the climb out of town, we had the great fortune to fall into step with Paul, a 65-year-old Irishman who took this journey—and life—in confident, good-humored stride. It’s uncanny how you run into some of the same people over and over again on your journey, and Paul was one of them.

Before long, our trio was joined by two young German men and Pi, an athletic Oregonian who had already mastered the Pacific Crest Trail. It was our exchange of stories, and the encouraging smiles sent my way, that got me up that mountain. So no surprise that “Good Day” and “Wavin’ Flag” were the songs that kept the guys going, while Pi, brimming with her sunny outlook on life was our “Proud Mary” when our spirits flagged. As for Paul, it was Bénabar’s “Le fou rire,” or “The fool laughs.”

Some of the pilgrims with whom we walked in solidarity and song. Top right, Angela and Lisa from Australia, bottom right, Nikki of England. Bottom left, Mike of Canada. Top left, Marielle poses with some “permanent” pilgrims on the Portugese coast. Center top photo, pilgrims disembarking from the boat ride from Vilanova de Arousa to Pontecesures,. Bottom center, pilgrims who found shelter in the warmth of Anna and Pedro’s albergue, Alvorada Medieval.

That was a joyful day, meeting just the right people to get you over the toughest hills. And then there were the days when people, asked for a song, were brave enough to reveal their scars.

There was the song offered by D., a librarian from the U.S. traveling solo for the first time after heartbreak. She was reluctant at first to share a song with us. Music was so attached to her past, her ex-husband a musician. Eventually she provided a Billy Joel song we had never heard before, “Falling of the Rain”, because “the piano work is so beautiful on it.” After a beautiful and deep conversation we exchanged numbers and Marielle shared the link to our playlist. A few days later, as we took shelter near a monastery in the Spanish hills, Marielle received a text from D. “Your playlist has been so much fun. Lots of familiar songs and new ones too. Thank you for helping me rewrite the narrative with songs that had a previous history but are now associated with my Camiño.” Our project had unwittingly helped someone else.

Sometimes the songs people offered cut close to the bone, reopening our own scars with that raw, subtle power of music. On the boat that would bring us closer to the end of our walk on the Spiritual Variant, Amy had a heart-to-heart connection with a new friend, a woman who had divorced after 37 years of marriage when she finally realized “My ex-husband had no interest in my dreams.” She offered a song I now play every day: “Centering Prayer.”

I want to be where my feet are
I want to breathe the life around me
I want to listen as my heart beats

Then, over the boat’s loudspeakers, we heard “My heart will go on” by Celine Dion and exchanged a smile. We both remember Marielle performing this song as a melodramatic six-year old standing on the coffee table in the living room while her toddler sister Sara pranced around the room in her diaper. A gregarious crew member stopped at our table to offer more complementary cake and coffee and we took the opportunity to ask him our question. “This one,” he smiled cheekily and Marielle agreed effusively. 

For Marielle, today at 32, the song runs deeper than a popular track from the Titanic movie. It was the first song she sang at her late best friend’s karaoke birthday party last year, her sister Sara on the other microphone and her friend's spirit surrounding them. It was this friend in whose memory Marielle walked the Camino. Now when Marielle listens to the lyrics of “My Heart Will Go On,” she hears a yearning for someone who “has moved on ahead” as her friend’s mother describes it.

Marielle’s late friend would have loved the song offered by Emma, a young Dutch environmentalist bravely pushing on at her own pace despite painful shin splints. When we asked for her song, she said “I can’t really say the title, it’s just swear words.” When she saw our surprised faces, she said, “But it’s really good, I swear”. “Bloody Fucking Mother Asshole” by Martha Wainwright was the perfect angry sassy piece to keep Marielle walking in the rain for the last few kilometers in Pontevedra after she chugged on alone to check into our albergue while Amy got the first slot for a massage (Ah, Javier’s hands! Our savior that day). 

It’s amazing how much music can motivate us to overcome our fears. We fell into step in the Portuguese countryside with a retired German woman and her 19-year-old granddaughter. When Marielle asked the girl for her song, “Tore Up,” she said “It’s loud. I like to listen to loud music when my town feels too quiet.” She was about to leave the small town in Germany where she had always lived with her parents and little brother, to study media at university. To walk the Camino she had flown on an airplane for the first time in her life. She shared how she had been terrified as the flight had been delayed on the tarmac and music helped calm her down. We both remembered. She was at an age when the whole world begins to open up, in its beautiful, wild, and sometimes terrifying wonder.

Music is the universal language. Throughout our journey we would come across again and again an Italian husband and wife, probably in their 50s, with lovely, kind smiles. We smiled and waved, and tried our best at sign language when we passed each other along The Way. On the day we finally arrived at Santiago de Compostela, we were strolling around the cathedral and spotted the Italian couple again. This time, we hugged in celebration of completing the Camino, and then, determined to add their song choice, popped our question into the Google Translate app. They read it, looked at each other and told us it was “our song, our wedding song”. The translation for the title of the song is fittingly, “Emotion has no voice”, because no shared language is required for human connection. The music spoke for itself.

With music in your backpack, you have an entry point into other cultures, a natural way of establishing connections with locals, as Marielle has discovered in her world travels. In Brazil on a work trip she took a deep dive into the Brazilian music scene, which became a source of connection with our generous host one night: Luís, a Brazilian transplant to Portugal. He had done what Marielle’s musician partner (and what many other melomaniacs) dream of doing. He had recently quit his day job and committed to being a musician full-time. The rainy night we stayed in his warm and welcoming guest house, he was uploading the first ever Spotify tracks for his band. As he kindly drove us to the supermarket to get some ingredients for dinner, we told us “Everybody hurts” had helped him through a hard time. As we ventured deeper into conversations about music, he was stunned and delighted at how many Brazilian artists Marielle knew and loved. Through music, the world becomes a little smaller and cozier.

This was also the beauty of our question, “What song gets you through hard times?” It didn’t just bring up sad experiences. People also offered us deeply inspirational stories as they shared their songs. We fell into step with an energetic early retiree who lived in Colorado and was walking the Camino alone. Earlier that day she had received a phone call from a close friend back home, telling her that he had terminal cancer. She told us how she had burst into tears, and ironically her friend was comforting her. “He just said, ‘I’ve lived a good life, I am happy with everything I’ve done and the places I’ve seen. I’m grateful.’ We all marveled at such a positive outlook in the face of death, and the song she proffered, “Born to run”, gained new meaning. We have to live our lives to the fullest, and be grateful for every day.

At the end of the Camino, we joked “Is it the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?” As Marielle’s partner likes to say, “It’s a joke, but it’s not a joke.” The day before we left Barcelona, we tested our question on him. He thought for a moment and then said “The first movement of Beethoven’s third piano concerto.” Very precise—and apt—for a classical pianist, and Marielle understood why he had chosen it. For many of us, the pandemic was a dark and anxious-ridden time, but he speaks of it rather positively because he was able to spend time with his beloved piano, delving deeper into the genius of Beethoven and Bach. Wherever they go as a couple, he looks for (and spots) pianos, his passion for music practically emanating from his fingertips.

While she couldn’t join us for the actual walk due to conflicting schedules, Sara, Marielle’s younger sister, was there in spirit, every step of the way. And so we asked her for a song. She offered “Traveling On” by the Kongos. And in that empathetic, intuitive way of hers, she had chosen a song that had deep meaning for all of us: a mother suspended in all the choices available to her, an older sister happy to make her way back home to Barcelona and her partner, and for Sara, making her home with her long-time partner Ilias, with an engagement announced while we were on the Camino.

Maybe I'll go it all alone

See the world and make my way back home

Or maybe I'll keep traveling on

And then, of course, we want to share with you our own choice for the song that gets you through hard times. Here is Marielle’s story:

I was bound to fall in love with a musician, given my lifelong love affair with music. Some people journal with prompts, or just recounting their day. Ever since I was a proud owner of a little MP3 player, I have journaled through songs. Throughout my diaries I find mentions of songs, and when I hear them, it’s as if memories of that time in my life were mysteriously stored in the notes and lyrics. To this day, I make a new playlist each month. I title the playlist with a word for the month, and add songs that come up that month, whether heard in a coffee shop or on a random Spotify playlist. Eventually those songs start to hold the memories of that month or year. Sometimes I revisit playlists from years back and it helps me remember, particularly the time before my best friend died, and I was blissfully ignorant of how untenable our mortality is.

The song I chose, “Color Esperanza” by Argentinean pop star Diego Torres, was a gift from my departed best friend. Her last ever Instagram post is a video in which she sings and dances to this song in her living room, hair in a messy bun and comfy clothes on, dedicating it to all the women who inspire her in her life. A few months after she posted that, I sang it at her wake. The year in which she “moved on ahead”, this song was the top-played song on my Spotify account. The lyrics in Spanish encourage you to release your fears and “paint your face in the color of hope.” It was the song I played as we marched into Santiago with our packs after that incredible journey.

For Amy, the song that gets her through hard times is Stevie Wonder’s “As.” “It is a song that has that blend of poignancy and buoyancy that makes me want to dance around the room with tears in my eyes and my heart swelling with emotion. When times feel hard, I need to move and I need to grab onto hope, and Stevie always offers hope. It feels like he put everything he had into this song, the way I want to put everything I’ve got into this third act of mine. Not least, the song is about love, which is at the center of everything. When I was younger, I thought the line, ‘I’ll be loving you always’ was about romantic love. Now, older and wiser, I believe it is really about self-love—loving myself through all the seasons of life.”

Just as time knew to move on since the beginning
And the seasons know exactly when to change
Just as kindness knows no shame
Know through all your joy and pain
That I'll be loving you always

Then there were the days when the only music we needed was in nature’s quiet symphony. On our rest day, Marielle felt restless after so many days of movement, and sought solitude by the river Minho in Portugal. In the bright sunshine she settled at the water’s edge, closed her eyes, and meditated, slipping into that altered state without being aware for how long she had drifted into that different consciousness. As Marielle shared later, “When I opened my eyes again, a poem appeared in my mind, like the wake on the water from the boat that had just passed by. I thought of all the people we had met so far and I wrote this poem.”

Enjoy our Spotify playlist in full, “What song keeps you going when life gets hard?”

In the comments below, please share your song. We want to keep crowdsourcing this playlist and watch it grow!

Next Tuesday, Oct 29, we’ll continue with Part 6, the final part of the series: Planning Your Camino, we share all the practical tips and resources we used in planning this journey so you can plan yours. Want to catch up on previous essays? Check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 by Amy, and Part 4, by Marielle, here and here.

For paid subscribers, there’s an hour-long live Zoom call Saturday November 2 at 8am PST/11am EST/5pm CET to answer all your questions about the Camino. We love sharing about this incredible adventure!As always, paid subscribers also receive a voice-over from the author of the week’s essay.