Eve Ai’s Confessions: Memory

“I’m not really good at using technology to make records of my life. I seldom take pictures or videos. I prefer to use my senses to recall the more profound experiences in my life,” Eve Ai tells Apple Music. For Ai, music is a way to not only recall her most profound memories but also let them out and transform them into musical confessions. To mark the release of Ai’s fifth album, How Come I Still Remember All, she joins Apple Music to share four exclusive playlists titled “Eve Ai’s Confessions”. The first in the series is “Memory”. “Past loves, pitfalls of love and every positive and negative experience are always floating around in the recesses of my mind. So, in my view, memory is a very important aspect of life,” she says. “The confessions in my songs usually have to do with memories I’m unable to let go of. In truth, these are memories that are floating around nearly all of my albums.” As for the memories that inspired some of her own musical contributions to this playlist, she says, “In the song ‘Forever Young’, I see a confession of a youthful love that’s longing—a little greedy and a little naive, but still something I want to go forward with—so it’s kind of a ‘sweet’ confession. On ‘早晚’ (‘Eventually’), my confession is that I’m often too aware of my feelings. I wish I could be less aware of my feelings so that the regret would diminish too, and I would remember less. Memories are a huge, accumulating system, so I need to use confession as a way of finding a way out for some of them—so that I can get off my own back.” “The songs on this playlist are what I’ve sorted out after plundering my memories. Whether it’s songs that everyone knows like ‘Forever Young’—or a-mei’s ‘Have You Heard Lately?’—these are all songs that talk about looking back through your past. However, looking back doesn’t necessarily mean regretting, and you don’t necessarily need to dwell on past experiences to be able to move on. These songs are footnotes to my memories,” she says.