Music & Memories

[knivesout]

Kimmyj (sorry if I got that wrong) mentioned how thinking of favourite music brings up memories of the times when one first heard that music, on the 'Perfect 10' album thread. I thought it mightbe interesting to talk about some of the memories that particular songs/albums bring up for us. I'll go first, since I seem to be starting the thread.

I always remember my mother when I hear anything by The Beatles, but especially the Sgt Peppers album. This, along with the autobiography of MK Gandhi, were the two gifts she gave me on my 10th birthday. I have a vivid memory of going out on a drive, waiting in the car while my mother went somewhere, her coming back with these two gifts and then going back home and listening to the album. The first album I ever had my very own copy of!

Paul Simon: Graceland. When I was in high school, people who were at all into similar music were very rare. So when I found another boy who was into some rock, I was thrilled. One afternoon, in his place, I riffled through his collection and found this tape. We kept playing it for the rest of that afternoon, while reading comics and cracking your usual bog standard schoolboy jokes.

Ozzy Osbourne: Ozzmosis. My first girlfriend and I used to trip on this album constantly. It was the soundtrack to our love affair. Many of those songs seem almost peurile to me now, but back then they meant the world to us, as we did to each other. For a while.

Silverchair: Neon Ballroom. In the year after college, two friends and I used to hang out together constantly. We were all in a state of uncertainty over our future, and held together as a sort of triumvirate against the world. We had scads of music in common, but this album will always remind me of endless evenings in my friend's tiny little bachelor pad, sprawled on a matress, smoking clove cigarettes, swigging vodka and contemplating the hostile universe.

[littlemissattitude]

Oh, goodness, yes. Music and memories are firmly linked in my mind. Some are general memories, and some are very specific.

Like Rod Stewart's "Maggie May". Every time I hear this song, I think of sitting on my bed, in my bedroom, one particular night when the song first came out. It was playing on the radio, and for some reason it came into my mind that forever afterward, when I would hear this song, I would think of that moment. Strange thing for a teenager to think, I suppose. But, it's true, all these years later.

Or like The Beatles' "Eight Days A Week". Every time I hear that one, I'm sitting back in our dining room in our old house and I'm about ten years old. It's late afternoon and I'm sitting at the table reading. The windows are open...it's a nice southern California afternoon and there is a breeze wafting in through the pyrocantha bushes. It's such a vivid memory.

"American Pie" - this one always reminds me of one day in high school, when I was in class and was supposed to be working on something, but a friend and I were trying to decode all the lyrics to this song instead.

The Beatles' "White Album" always reminds me of my eighth grade gym class. During the month we were doing gymnastics (so we were inside in the gym) we were allowed to bring records to school to listen to during class. People brought other albums, but one of my friends always brought this one, and we listened to it a lot.

[kimmyj]

All of the above memories are when you guys were children or young adults. Is that significant?
Do you have more recent musical memories?

One of my younger ones was listening to an Abba greatest hits album whilst reading The Hobbit. I was about 11 and would have sworn that Abba wrote their songs as a soundtrack to the book. I can't hear Abba now without thinking of the book.

Last year I saw the Darkness in concert. I then bought the CD 'Permission to Land' and played it all summer. It was in my car CD player so I listened to it when I was on holiday (vacation). My young niece and nephews learned all the words and we all sang along together (not that we were any good). Nice memory.........

[LadyFel]

Mine's quite weird actually...
When Sash! released 'Equador', I was in London, just getting ready for the summer holidays...Anyway, I went up town to see my mum at work and, as always, had my walkman radio with me...The song came on just as the bus took a corner on the Edgware Road, I was on the top deck and the sun hit me full on at that moment.

All I know is that I spent the next few minutes of the song grinning like an idiot to myself with tears in my eyes, that moment totally made that day for me. And I always think of it when I hear that song.

It's happened maybe once or twice since then with different songs, but I can usually remember where I was at the moment I first heard the song. My last was when I watched the contest where the song representing Croatia was chosen...There was a tune which literaly had me glued to the screen...of coourse, some total crap won, but my day was made again

[Arwynn]

i have these music/people associations..my first "true love" and i listened to lots and lots of music..when i hear tom waits for example-especially the song that goes "i want you.. you.. you..all i want it you.." he put that on every mix tape that he ever made me and there were lots! even after we broke up he kept putting it on tapes for me..im not sure why, but it was like our theme song. when i think of him i also think leonard cohen, who's music now just depresses me!

i have a cd of lullabies from around the world that was given to me as a gift the day elwynn was born..everytime i listen to it i think back on that day and how i played that cd over and over till i knew all of the words..when i put it on now elwynn sits really quiet and listens with this look on his face like he remebers that day just as i do.the three of us snuggled up in bed all warm and cozy. a little family.

the weakerthans album "left and leaving" reminds me of days gone by, when i lived in a crazy punk rock house in the heart of china town..my room mates and i..and any visitors who would stay for a while would sit around drinking red wine and talking about revolution..

but, really, there is so much music and so many associations to so many times and places and people..i dont think taht i could ever begin to name them.

thank for this thread .. its helped me to remember times long past and smile a bit about how things change and grow.

[knivesout]

Originally Posted by kimmyj

All of the above memories are when you guys were children or young adults. Is that significant?
Do you have more recent musical memories?

Well, I suppose I'm still a youngish adult, so I'm not certain. But I do imagine that memories from earlier in life tend to be more vivid or at least charged.

Originally Posted by Arwynn

thank for this thread .. its helped me to remember times long past and smile a bit about how things change and grow.

Same here. Looking back can sometimes be a great way to get a clearer picture of where I am now.

[Arwynn]

*nods*

more recent memories..im still a pretty young adult myself! unless you consider 23 old.. and my son was only born in dec.2002..not yet 2 years ago..but let me think on this..you see the thing is..i listen to so much music, its hard to pick out one certain song or band that triggers anything for me.. but i guess the album Kid A by radiohead has a lot of more recent momories for me..my partner and i built a smallish house on vancouver island last year or so and we listened to a lot of radiohead, especially that album, and the bends...but somehow it doesnt really trigger a strong feeling or emotion for me..not in the same clear wayas the older ones, anyways..but maybe in a year i will feel that vividness about it, who knows really..

[mzarynn]

This is a great thread. I was just tranported back in time on my way to work this Monday. I switched to a different radio station and they played two random songs from my childhood.

The first was "We built this city" by Jefferson Starship. I immediately went back to third grade, standing on the ladder of my swingset with an older girl who used to come over and play. The only thing I remember about her was that she kept rewinding that song over and over and I was really annoyed.

The other song was "Manic Monday" by the Bangles. My friends and I formed a group called the Junior Bangles and I was reminded of our little band. I was always Vickie because she had red hair, but I would have settled for Debbie because that was my mom's name. Weird stuff... but I love it when songs bring me back to moments.

Those two songs are just the most recent happenings. I'm sorry they are both from my childhood once again. I do have an incredible amount of musical associations being that I was a music major in college. I find that my most recent memories/associations are still a part of me now as where my childhood associations are from a "young" me. If that makes any sense.

[kimmyj]

I suppose it does make sense that folks will have lots of vivid musical associations from childhood. And they somehow seem more poignant.

However, I have lots of recent ones.

I snowboard with my treasured MP3 player. I have two memory cards - one for gentle playing on the slopes and one for shredding up the mountain (well trying to cos I'm a real wimp!)
Any time I hear any of the music from my snowboarding memory cards I am transported back to the mountains - white slopes, crisp air, blue skies and freedom.........

My MP3 player is great because I can make up compillations of music that I love. I can put musical memories and associations together to create certain moods.

It takes a wee bit of time to put the music together but its so worth it. When I'm down I get out a card of music that makes me feel happy and inspired. It always does the trick.

[dwndrgn]

Oh yes. Music brings back memories...a couple that immediately come to mind:

Chicago's 17 - in high school I worked in (at the time) the largest sit-down restaurant on the east coast (US) and one summer fell in love with this tape (yep, that long ago lol!) and played it on my way to work and home. Actually wore the tape out doing this but all the songs from that album remind me of those quiet nights driving home late (lived in a small tourist town known as Williamsburg) where I was the only car on the roads and I was enjoying my freedom from everything but the red lights...

The Bangles' 'Manic Monday' was being constantly overplayed in France while I was there on a trip when it first came out. I get flashbacks of the tour busses and the silly girls I was travelling with and the cute guy I was in love with at the time...

Ozzie's Blizzard of Oz reminds me of the same sleepy tourist town from above...there are a lot of wooded, winding roads and when driving to school, or just around, I'd have that thing cranked up as loud as my poor old car stereo would go, windows all down (no ac), singing all the words and enjoying the scenery.

All JS Bach reminds me of my hour-long commute to my old job. When traffic got bad I'd crank it up some of those lovely harpsichord melodies and relax while everyone else got hot under the collar.

Hm. Seems a lot of my music memories center around my car. Probably because I never had a stereo (my money earned for working put gas in my car and books on my shelves) and currently still don't. So, I mostly hear music now at work and in the car. The work music is annoyingly the same garbage over and over as our DJ plays to the lowest common denominator and the car music also all the same as this POS I'm currently driving has a broken CD player and the radio stations are all dull.