Considering the amount of information we're bombarded by, it's

Host:
The record store smelled like nostalgia — that faint mix of cardboard sleeves, old vinyl, and dust warmed by sunlight. Rows upon rows of records lined the narrow aisles, silent witnesses to decades of heartbreaks, revolutions, and late-night dance floors. A turntable spun slowly near the front window, filling the air with the faint crackle of something timeless — a soul ballad that could’ve been from any decade.

Outside, the world screamed in pixels and pings — car horns, phone notifications, screens flashing news, noise, novelty. But in here, there was only sound that stayed.

At the listening booth in the corner, Jack leaned against the counter, headphones around his neck, flipping through a worn vinyl of Time, Love and Tenderness. Across from him, Jeeny was kneeling by a crate marked CLASSICS THAT ENDURE, her fingers tracing album spines like sacred relics.

On the counter near the register sat a small, yellowed quote printed on a record sleeve:

“Considering the amount of information we’re bombarded by, it’s amazing if a song can transcend time.”
— Michael Bolton

Jeeny: (looking up from the crate) You ever think about that? How some songs never die — even when everything else does?

Jack: (smiles faintly) Yeah. They sneak past the noise. Like they remember something the world forgot.

Jeeny: (softly) Or maybe they remind the world what it used to feel like.

Jack: (turning a record over in his hands) You know, it’s kind of a miracle — songs surviving in an age where attention lasts three seconds.

Jeeny: (grinning) That’s what makes them timeless. They don’t fight for your attention. They earn your silence.

Host: The record player crackled, the singer’s voice trembling with something both fragile and eternal. Light filtered through the dust, turning the space golden. The sound was imperfect — but that imperfection was what made it human.

Jack: (quietly) It’s strange, isn’t it? The world’s louder than ever, and yet the things that last are always the quiet ones — a melody, a photograph, a line of poetry.

Jeeny: (softly) Because noise fades. Meaning doesn’t.

Jack: (half-smiling) You sound like a lyricist.

Jeeny: (laughs) Maybe I am. Maybe every person who still feels something in a song is a kind of writer. We keep rewriting what it means, every time we listen.

Jack: (nods) Yeah. A song’s never finished. It just keeps finding new hearts to belong to.

Host: The doorbell jingled, and a young couple walked in — laughing, alive, oblivious to the poetry of the place. Jeeny watched them, a soft smile touching her lips, like she was watching her younger self.

Jeeny: (whispering) You remember your first song? The one that actually made you stop and listen?

Jack: (pauses) Yeah. “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Heard it on the radio when I was ten. My mom was crying in the kitchen, and I didn’t understand why. But I could feel it.

Jeeny: (smiling) You never really forget those moments. They shape the way you love, the way you lose.

Jack: (softly) Yeah. I think songs are emotional fossils — proof that people felt before we did.

Jeeny: (quietly) And somehow, when we listen, we feel less alone.

Host: The needle lifted, then dropped again — the soft pop of connection restored. Outside, a billboard flickered with an ad for the latest streaming app. Inside, the old speakers kept humming their stubborn truth.

Jack: (after a long silence) You think it’s harder for music to last now?

Jeeny: (shrugs) Harder to be heard, maybe. Not harder to mean something.

Jack: (nodding) Yeah. I guess beauty doesn’t care about algorithms.

Jeeny: (smiling) No. Beauty just waits — patient, confident, knowing someone will eventually stop scrolling long enough to listen.

Jack: (grins) You talk about music like it’s a person.

Jeeny: (softly) Maybe it is. Maybe every song that survives time is just love wearing a melody.

Host: The sunlight shifted, catching Jeeny’s reflection in the vinyl — her face fractured into a dozen shimmering versions. It looked like an echo of the same truth Michael Bolton had meant — that the most human thing in the world is to create something that outlives the moment that made it.

Jack: (quietly) It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? All this noise, all this data, all these voices — and the only things that reach eternity are usually made with silence first.

Jeeny: (softly) Yeah. Songs, prayers, love letters — all born in quiet.

Jack: (nods) Maybe that’s why they last. They start with listening.

Jeeny: (smiles) Listening — the lost art of the century.

Host: The wind outside stirred the open door, and for a brief second, the world outside — the chaos, the rush, the relentless urgency — felt far away. The record kept spinning.

Jeeny: (after a pause) You know, it’s not just about the songs that survive. It’s about the people who let them. Someone, somewhere, keeps playing them. Keeps remembering.

Jack: (softly) Yeah. Immortality’s not about being known. It’s about being carried.

Jeeny: (smiling) Exactly.

Jack: (quietly) Then I guess we’re all time travelers every time we hit “play.”

Jeeny: (smiles) The most gentle kind.

Host: The song changed, a new melody filling the room — another voice, another decade. Jack closed his eyes, letting it wash over him, the sound wrapping around the edges of memory.

Jack: (after a while) You think we’ll ever make something that lasts?

Jeeny: (smiling) We already do. Every time we love someone fully, forgive someone completely, or say something that heals. That’s our version of a song.

Jack: (quietly) And if it transcends time?

Jeeny: (softly) Then it was worth the noise.

Host: The record spun to silence, the needle hovering in still air — a pause before eternity.

Host (closing):
Outside, the city continued its endless scroll — new stories, new sounds, new distractions. But inside that small record shop, time had paused long enough to breathe.

“Considering the amount of information we’re bombarded by, it’s amazing if a song can transcend time.”

And maybe that’s the miracle of art —
that against the flood of everything fleeting,
something as fragile as a melody
can still linger,
quietly,
in the human heart.

As Jack and Jeeny stood by the turntable,
the reflection of the spinning record glowed in their eyes —
a reminder that in a world drowning in noise,
amazement still lives in the few things
that choose to listen back.