Dedicated to my Dad, on what would have been his birthday. Happy Heavenly Birthday.
Moments I will never forget include listening to my Mom sing every word to songs I never knew she knew. It wasn’t something I experienced growing up. I was surprised yet joyful to watch her sing and dance to the music.
I didn’t understand it then. But I have come to understand it now, and the science behind it is as moving as the moment itself.
What Music Does to the Brain That Alzheimer’s Cannot Undo
Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are relentless. They chip away at names, faces, places, and the memories that stitch a life together. But they leave something behind, and researchers are still marveling at what that something is.
Musical memory occupies a different region of the brain than other types of memory, and it tends to be among the last affected by Alzheimer’s damage. This is why a person who no longer recognizes their own home can still sing every word of a song they loved at 25. Research backs this up: according to Harvard Health, adults over 70 who listened to music on most days had a 39 percent lower risk of developing dementia than those who rarely or never listened. Music does not just comfort. It may actually protect.
One of the most public and beautiful examples of this was Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga. Bennett, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, performed two sold-out shows with Gaga at Radio City Music Hall in New York City in celebration of his 95th birthday. On stage, in front of a full audience, with the music playing, he was there. Fully present, singing, connecting. His neurologist had noted that music seemed to activate parts of his brain that the disease had otherwise quieted. It was a gift to witness, even from afar. And it is exactly what I saw in my own mother, in a much smaller room, on ordinary afternoons.
The Music Box That Changed Everything
A simple, easy-to-use radio or music player loaded with familiar songs from your loved one’s era can be genuinely transformative. The first one we purchased was an AM FM Classic Retro Radio with Bluetooth Speaker. This was great because we could listen to the radio, but I could also play songs from my phone’s playlists or search for their type of music. As dementia progressed, we found the Relish Portable FM Radio and MP3 Music Player to be more appropriate. This one is designed especially for the elderly and the visually impaired, with large buttons and an easy-to-use design. You can find both of these music players on the Caregiving Finds page.
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Neither player has a complicated interface. No scrolling. Just the music they already loved, queued up and ready. For my parents, it was mostly the classics: the 40s and 50s. Songs I had never heard them sing in my childhood suddenly became the soundtrack of our time together at the end of their lives.
Music reaches parts of the brain that Alzheimer’s often leaves intact longer than other memories. I have seen it happen. A song comes on and something shifts. The smile starts, and then the notes follow.
My Playlists: What They Were, What They Did, What They Still Do
I am a playlist person. I always have been. But during the most challenging and, in its own way, most profound season of my life, my playlists became something more than background noise. They became a lifeline.
Here is what my Spotify library looked like at that time:
The Grandkids Playlist 
I was driving my grandchildren around while also showing up every day at the assisted living community for my parents. The car was often where those two worlds overlapped, kids singing in the backseat and bringing that present moment of joy to the forefront, a much-needed weave of love. Their playlists were pure joy. I needed that contrast.
The Oldies for Mom and Dad
Curated from their era: the standards, the big band, the early rock and roll. These were the songs I played in their apartment, during car rides, the songs that made my Mom sing and my Dad hum. There were some favorites they each liked and tailored the listening to their needs. A favorite for my Dad was the Man of La Mancha soundtrack. He had taken us all to see this, our first Broadway musical.
My Leaving Playlist 
This one was mine alone. When I walked out of the assisted living community, I turned it on as soon as I got in the car, took a deep breath, and sometimes didn’t leave right away, just sitting and listening to a song or two before I started the drive home. It helped me decompress, reenter my own life, and make it home without falling apart. That year, my most-played song was “Songbird” by Rita Wilson and Josh Groban, a song so tender and so right for that season that I am not sure I could have gotten through it without it.
If you use Spotify and have never seen your Wrapped report, stay tuned. I will walk you through how to find it in an upcoming post.
Earworms, Spotify Wrapped Reports, and What Your Listening Habits Are Telling You
Have you ever had a song stuck in your head for no apparent reason, looping, repeating, impossible to shake? That is what researchers call an earworm, and it is your brain doing something actually quite remarkable: latching onto a piece of music it finds emotionally resonant or cognitively stimulating and replaying it as a kind of internal processing. It can feel maddening in the moment, but it is a sign of how deeply music embeds itself in us.
One of my favorite end-of-year rituals now is Spotify Wrapped, the annual report that shows you your most-played songs, artists, genres, and total listening time. I have started to treat it as a kind of emotional autobiography of the year. What you played most tells you a great deal about where you were, what you needed, and how you were coping. It is a data-driven journal entry, and sometimes it surprises you.
What I have noticed over the years is that my playlists evolve with the seasons of my life, and so does my taste. Some days I need soft rock. On other days, I reach for acoustic covers. Sometimes I want something with a little more edge. Paying attention to what you are drawn to musically on a given day is its own form of self-knowledge. Your mood often speaks before you do, and it speaks in genre.
Three Years Later: “Sound of a Woman” by Rita Wilson
It has been three years since those daily drives to the assisted living community. My parents are gone, but the music from that season lives on in me.
Already a fan of Rita Wilson’s work through her duets album, I came across her lead single “Sound of a Woman”, then her second single “Michelangelo.” These two songs gave me hope and the courage to move forward with Sunrise Voice, a five-year on-and-off passion project. As she released the rest of the “Sound of a Woman” album, I became further connected to myself and the season I am in. It resonated so deeply, it felt like it was made for me, exactly where I am at this stage, this chapter of life. But in reality, it is for all of us in this season.
I shared the link to “Your Mother” with my daughters and a few friend groups right before Mother’s Day. They responded with heart emojis and comments like wow, a tear-jerker, and so beautiful.
A central theme of Sunrise Voice in June is Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month. And then I went to the Alzheimer’s Association website and found Rita Wilson there, advocating for #ENDALZ with the story of her own mother.
The connections feel almost too layered to be a coincidence. A woman who lost her mother to Alzheimer’s, writing an album about womanhood and memory and what we carry forward, arriving in my life during Alzheimer’s & Brain Awareness Month, the month I am finally stepping fully into this work.
Music does that. It finds you when you need it.
For the Caregiver: A Note Just for You
If you are in the thick of it right now, if you are the one doing the daily visits, the advocacy, the driving, the watching, please hear this: the music is for you too.
Not just for your loved one. For you.
Create a playlist for the drive home. Let yourself feel whatever comes up in those minutes between their world and yours. Put on something that reminds you who you are outside of this role. Let music be the thing that grounds you back into yourself, even briefly, even imperfectly.
You are allowed to have your song.
Resources Mentioned
- Alzheimer’s Association: #ENDALZ — go purple and raise your voice this June
- Portable music players with large controls — see our Sunrise Voice Caregiving Finds.
- Harvard Health Article: Musical engagement may help lower dementia risk.
- Rita Wilson’s “Sound of a Woman”