When I left the border for college some years ago, I dreamed of permanent escape; and, like Domingo Martinez, I turned to song to process my feelings. I spent hours listening to bands I’d never heard of — Sufjan Stevens, The Bad Plus, Explosions in the Sky — trying to match tunes to new experiences: Indian food, freezing weather, micro aggressions at the mall. I even recorded covers with a used cassette recorder and a busted, acoustic Fender I borrowed from a friend. Each song I sang helped me deal with a hard truth: the world north of the border was nothing like the utopia I’d imagined.
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