Imagine Dragons

On the Labour Day weekend in 2018, my brother Ross and I took Isaac to the Bridal Falls Waterpark for some sliding. It was kind of a cooler day, but sunny. For whatever reason it wan't busy. We went down a LOT of slides.

As they do in those places, music was being played. A song came on, likely Radioactive. I mentioned to Ross that I really liked the song. A while later Demons was played. The same thing happened. Sometime after that? Believer. Similar comments. Bear in mind this was over a few hours. Anyway, at some point Ross said something along the lines of, "Yeah, Imagine Dragons is a pretty good band." "Who?"

Turns out, I liked a half dozen songs by this band and had no idea it was same band. I don't listen to much radio and rarely pay attention to things when streaming music. So we started on an Imagine Dragons kick starting the next week.

I was largely the one responsible for music discovery in our house. Hillary liked somewhat different music than I, but I learned her tastes. She liked country a fair bit, especially the pop country but largely neglected it as I really can't handle much of it. I do love me some pop music though, so whenever I found a new artist that I thought might go over well, we'd start with it.

The two last bands I introduced to our house before Hillary died were CHVRCHES and Imagine Dragons. She tolerated my love of the former and there were a few tunes of the latter she really liked.

The one memory that stands out in my mind was as we were driving up Underhill I think. Probably to drop Isaac off at school. She didn't do that a whole lot in that last month, but we did it together a few times. Isaac would demand Imagine Dragons as we drove up the road. This time Whatever it takes came on.

We listened to it. As the last chorus ended, Hillary said quietly to me, "Whatever it takes. I really like what that song says."