The use of names was a way to bring back everything someone could remember about a person. The strength in a name is something that has always made me wonder at the “abstraction” of the design; the ability of a name to bring back every single memory you have of that person is far more realistic and specific and much more comprehensive than a still photograph, which captures a specific moment in time or a single event or a generalized image that may or may not be moving for all who have connections to that time.

A lot of pop musicians do this: simplify things and find an emotional coordinate and then write a whole song about that coordinate. Maybe the first verse of a song is about a lover, and the second verse is about a friend, and then the third verse is something you saw in a movie, but it’s all about that particular emotional location. Pop music is so often an attempt to make sense of something that’s really complicated in everyday life. Often, the method that works is to zoom out and try to look at it from afar.