I was not the first person to make this comment but 1 in 5 people will know someone with dementia (1). By the age of 65, 1 in 10 of us will develop dementia by the age of 65 (2). The intent of Kirby’s project was to simulate the experience of dementia of someone in our current year. This is why the original songs reconstructed by Kirby for his project came out from the 1920’s to the 1930’s. We know that the most effective way for aiding someone with dementia is to play the songs of their former childhood; "Musical perception, emotion, and memory can survive long after other forms of memory and cognitive function have disappeared" (3). In the future, this is what some of us will hear, the nostalgic songs of C418, when we cannot think of anything else.
(1) alzheimer.ca, (2) alz.org, (3) Music and Dementia: An Overview by Ronald Devere, MD