Really what I wanted to do was ask you all:
What are the songs in your life that act as time travelers for you? The songs that make something spring back to life in your memory with the vivid-ness of reality? Any experiences of that you want to share?
Pictures of You by the Cure.
Senior year in college. The Love of My Life (who I never actually dated) and I are hanging out in his room. We’re listening to Disintegration and doing bong hits and the song comes on. I tell him it’s my favorite Cure song. He tells me it’s his, too. We sit there, stoned and quiet, until it’s over. Then stay up until sunrise talking. Sigh. Romantic, I know ;)
Every time I see that damn HP commercial, I stop what I’m doing and think of that.
‘Sweethearts’ – Camper Van Beethoven.
I have one whose power over me is almost scary.
My father died when I was 19 years old. Besides the general mourning of having your father die, I have the added discomfort of having had him die when I was a very mixed-up adolescent. I seem to be forever regretful that he died when I was perhaps at my worst, and has not been able to observe how I ultimately turned out.
At two specific times in my life, when I was close to making a major decision, I have dreamt that I spoke with my Dad, as if he was still alive, about the decision. In both cases, in the dream he was supportive of my decision, and I awoke almost glowing with pride.
The song? It is the old 1970’s “ABC Wide World of Sports” theme, with the voice-over:
Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports. . .
The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. . .
The human drama of athletic competition. This is ABC’s Wide World of Sports.
The song reminds me of my father because he would always watch it, feet propped up, eating sardines and crackers and drinking beer, when I was a kid.
It probably still has power because you never hear it anymore. I don’t, anyway. My brain has no other association of the song except for my father.
The first time I heard it after my father’s death was over a decade after he had died, and it brought back a wave of memory so powerful that I almost had to sit down… the wood paneling… the old TV… the sardines… me playing with Matchbox cars at his feet…
Aaaaa…
Wow, Ash.
Your comment actually made me hear that theme song again myself. No, you don’t hear it anymore. I still remember “the agony of defeat” with that skier wiping out so horrifically.
Thanks for sharing that story about your father.
Jess, don’t you hate it when you don’t actually DATE the love of your life? I hate it when that happens.
Yes, it pretty much ensures you spend the rest of your life asking yourself “What if?”
Sometimes you do that Love of Your Life.
And wind up standing in a smoking crater of a relationship three years later.
Not that I know anyone’s that’s happened to, heheheheh.
Steely Dan “Reelin’ in the Years”, summer 1972. Sitting on the hearth of the fireplace in the rec room of the condo complex in Venice, Fla where my folks had a place. Our next door neighbors from Chicago also had a place there, and the neighbor girl had brought a girl friend of her’s along. First time I was afflicted with weird overwhelming feelings at first sight. I don’t remember her name or anything except that song in the background and thinking that nothing could possibly ever be better than just sitting right next to her. I was 14.
Van Morrison “Astral Weeks” and Keith Jarrett, “The Koln Concert”, spring 1978. Music that was playing the first time I spent a whole night wrapped up with a woman. Doze for a while, change the music, curl up again.
Indigo Girls first album, Feb 1991. Got the tape well after it had come out, just to see what the hoopla was. Listened to it driving from Boulder to Leadville (Colorado) to go do field work for my thesis. Just before starting the drive I visited my best friend, who had been diagnosed with cancer the previous fall. It was on that drive, and with that music in the background, that I finally and fully grasped down inside that my friend was not going to recover. Melancholy, anger, fondness.
Dan:
Yeah, look out for that (hypothetical) smoking crater
These are all incredible to read, by the way.
Jackstraw – Ash – Jess – Mitch (in the post below) – everyone … These are very vivid memories. Thank you.
You’re going to love this.
I had cancer for about 8 years on and off, followed up with a bone marrow transplant. During chemotherapy days, back before the fancy anti-nausea drugs they had then, I’d listen to soothing music to keep me from rejecting the stuff TOO violently.
Specifically, I’d listen to Paul Simon’s Greatest Hits. Over and over, between and during the sweats, convulsions, vomitting, cramps, etc.
Now a days, I can hear a Simon song from that record, but play two in a row, in the order they appear on the record, and my reaction is either (a) immediate nausea or (b) immediate vomitting, depending on when my last meal was.
Just one of the fun legacies of a decade of cancer!
Lovin’ this! A Cure reference!! Woo-hoo!
But, the song that gets me the most is All I Want Is You by U2. The Woman Who Broke My Heart (and put it in a Cuisinart) is associated with that song.
[I loved typing that line: The Woman Who Broke My Heart (and put it in a Cuisinart). I cracked myself up. I put my copyright on it. So there. That’s my line.]
“The Worst That Could Happen”, by Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge.
… speaking of not dating the love of your life.
Father and Son song by Cat Stevens…
Heard it first in a smokie bedroom during my rebelous years and remeber shakng my fist to my dad who I didn’t think understood me …..
As I grew older I found out how great he was…
Now I cry when I hear that song….
Knowing that I have come full circle
“Ever Fallen in Love” by the Buzzcocks takes me to late summer 2002 as I let myself fall into an obvious trap I’m still trying to climb out of.
“Lady in Red” Cheezy as hell, but the girl I wanted more than anything used me to make her date jealous during that song. I always feel like a stupid 15 year old. (She was very good at using guys. We actually became good friends once I realized that.)
“Blue Savannah” by Erasure is more a where than a when. I’m always soaring under a late afternoon sun in western Montana with this one.
The mix of “Bizarre Love Triangle” on Substance is December 1996 because that was the night one of my nervous breakdowns began.
“True to Life,” by Roxy Music, off the “Avalon” album. The album was released at the end of my senior year of college at Berkeley, and given that most of us were in finals preparation mode, I hadn’t had much of a chance to give it a close listen.
I had just completed my last final on a Thursday afternoon, was exhausted both physically and mentally, went back to my room to unwind, and put the album on. There really is nothing in life quite like the feeling of utter relief at finishing a stressful week of college finals, but when the song came on, that feeling of relief was combined with an unbearable sadness of ending that stage of my life and an equally unbearable sense of anxiety about what in the world I was going to do with the rest of it (at that time, I had no idea).
As much as I love the album, hearing that song can be difficult because all of those feelings come back – it’s downright scary, because it really feels like I’m back in that room, with The Clash poster, Springsteen poster, lovely view of the cafeteria roof…
Good Memory-2001: Thank You (For giving me the best day of my life) by Dido.
Bad Memory-1983: Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature.”
I’m not sure why it didn’t paste the whole comment above.
Good Memory-2001: Thank You (For giving me the best day of my life) by Dido.
Newport Beach, California. The fireman. Met at his house and walked to his favorite pub. Got a good buzz going and then jumped in the ocean (smart, I know) and laid on the sand for about an hour. Then we went and sat in his hot tub and lounged around all afternoon. I can smell him, his bed, his house, the ocean air, the beer, the pub, and the hot tub. Dido was playing on the radio as I just laid there feeling liberated from some of my fears about myself and who I am and feeling somewhat normal for the first time in a very long time. I know it sounds corny, but it really was one of the best days of my life.
Bad memory-1983: Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature.” But I dont want to be a buzz kill.
I really like the post topic–I certainly have more “flashbacks” related to music than any other art form–(I can’t think of how a book or movie or TV show transports me back to a time and place the way a song does, complete with the tastes, smells, moods)–and I have wondered for a long time if this was the same with others. Based on Big Dan’s experience, it runs deeper than even I thought.
AC/DC – You Shook Me All Night Long
She was a fast machine
She kept her motor clean
She was the best damn woman I had ever seen
It was on the radio every time we turned it on when my wife and I were dating. It was our song whether we wanted it to be or not. Kinda ridiculous against As Time Goes By but there it is.
My sister was a huge Springsteen fan. I mean, The E-Street Band is definitely one of my all-time favorites, but she even loved all of Bruce’s solo albums.
Debbie was – like Rimbaud’s Son – one of those truly wonderful but incredibly frustrating people who never quite figure out how to get along in this world and live a relatively normal life. She caused our parents and me a great deal of heartache and stress over the years, due to a wide variety of serious emotional and physical problems, and her inability to support herself in any significant way. She was extremely intelligent, she had a great sense of humor and an enormous heart. She had definite manic-depressive tendencies, but she could always be counted on to remain level-headed in a crisis. Apart from her problems she was a really great person, but even when things seemed to be going very well, those problems always lurked.
To get back around to the topic at hand, Bruce Springsteen released an album called Nebraska in 1982. If you’ve never heard the album, it is one of the most haunting, emotionally searing, beautifully tortured recordings one can possibly imagine. Bruce made it at a time in his life when he was clearly going through some very serious shit. He went off to a house somewhere with basically just a low-tech recorder and a guitar, and created this painful masterpiece of almost hopeless despair.
My sister loved Nebraska. She loved it with a fierceness at which I could only marvel. Whenever I would say something along the lines of “I love it too, but sometimes the utter bleakness of it gets to me a little”, she would protest that the purity of the bleakness is exactly what made it such a great, treasured record.
One of the songs on Nebraska is Highway Patrolman. In it, the protagonist speaks of his love for a brother who “ain’t no good”. My sister was never as far gone as Frankie (the brother), but the sentiments in that song nevertheless spoke to me directly, in a gut-wrenchingly powerful way. I never told my sister about the impact that song had on me – how could I?
Debbie is gone now. Highway Patrolman is a song of enormous emotional power even for many of those who don’t feel a direct connection to their own lives. For me you might expect that it would be almost unbearable, but in the end I look back on how much joy that album brought to my little sis, in the midst of all her pain, and that’s enough to allow me to still feel the beauty of the record – even of that song.
Good Feeling – Madonna’s Ray of Light. Was in New York at the time, the song was everywhere, and the feeling in the music captured how I felt being there. Free, alive.
Not so much a bad feeling as much as the past – PJ Harvey, who I love, and her earlier albums, esp. Rid of Me and 4 Track Demos. I listened to them nonstop during a very intense relationship that consumed me and many of the songs from those albums I over-related to because of the relationship. I cannot listen to them today; or rather, I do not listen to them today. If I put them on I am instantly transported to the craziness and the ‘why does he hurt me why doesn’t he love me’ hell of back then (none of the good times are in this music) and I don’t want to be yanked back to all that, don’t want to feel it again or think about it, think about myself during that time. One day I probably should but not now. They make me sad, and in a way that really, really hurts.
In a funny way, because I do love PJ’s music so much, I am maybe time-capsuling these albums because I know if I started listening to them again I may end up shifting the association, breaking even slightly their connection to that time past. So I do think that’s part of why I stay away from them. It’s like I’ve set them aside and when I’m ready I will open them up again.
On the other hand, her album with John Parish, Dance Hall at Louse Point, I can listen to and it reminds me of driving through the canyon in Autumn and hearing it I am literally surrounded by all the senses of then, the autumnal light, the heat, the colors, the smell. And for some reason the angst and confusion and heartfilled heartache of the other albums isn’t in this one. It’s just autumn mornings laced with fog, or those sunny afternoons, my favorite time of year. Now that I’m away from home and from that drive and light and pattern of season, listening to it makes me feel both good and extremely homesick.
Gillian Welch’s Revival reminds me of driving in Big Bear with my dad and my brother, I made them listen to it nonstop when we were up there once just so it would have that association. I always see the forest trees and pine needled ground and get the sense of being in the cab of my dad’s truck hearing it. In a similar vein Jim Croce brings me to my childhood and Operator and I Got A Name – although I have no idea why – both in particular evoke a Big Bearish memory of driving up the mountain road with my dad’s family.
Neil Young;s Harvest – A friend and I were driving home from a Washington Pro-choice march on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Harvest was playing when we had to stop for some deer in the road. It was a moment where I was so in the moment, not due to drugs, I was alive to everything around me including my future. I was suddenly at peace knowing in some wordless way that I would find someone to partner with me for life and that it woud be good. At that second it was far off, but I knew it was coming. It was as if angels in the form of deer had stepped into the road to tell me everything would be ok and I totally believed them. I remember the weight of anxiety leaving me and a quiet bouyancy of “I am” lifting me into radiance. That day comes back every time I hear that song.
“Heartless,” by Heart was the soundtrack for the Man Who Broke My Heart (and put it in a Cuisinart TM EasyCure). I’ve managed to exorcise the pain but that period in my life pops into focus whenever I hear it and it’s the only Heart song I can still sing like it’s tattooed on my brain. In fact, it’s still as if I have to sing it, but the pain it helped me deal with isn’t there to be uncorked anymore.
“Winds of Change” by the Scorpions.
Sitting in a bar in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1990, waiting to do a black market currency deal for a friend of mine. Two big, proabably armed guys, checking me out to make sure I wan’t a narc, and the German band singing in English with the Berlin Wall crashing down on the video screen above the bar.
All the while I’m thinking “if the winds keep blowing, hard-working people won’t have to break the law anymore to earn a decent living”. Well, that and “I hope I don’t get shot tonight”. Adrenaline made even Soviet beer taste good.
Dearest: Your mother used to play “I got a feelin’ called the blues’ [Marty Robbins’ version] on the guitar, with an occasional yodel. I loved that song, but moreso that she sang that song. love, dad
Mum!! I love that!!