So I'm sitting in my truck on the drive to work, and what comes on the radio but Guns N Roses' "Paradise City". For six minutes and 46 seconds I was a teenager again, listening to the cassette tape version of Appetite for Destruction in my buddy Neil's apartment off-campus. Kenny was playing air drums while leaning against the gas stove, Bob was playing air guitar, and Neil had lead vocals. Hey, it was his apartment.
It's funny how certain things are tied to the past, and how something as simple as hearing a song on the radio can transport you back to that moment in time. Certain songs, certain albums, even, are tied to points in my life: Pink Floyd's "The Wall" with high school, "Appetite for Destruction", Whitesnake's "Slip of the Tongue", Van Halen's "5150"; these are the soundtrack to high school and college (yes, I'm a middle-aged 40 year old former metalhead). Nirvana and Pearl Jam took over in college, and Offspring, Rage Against the Machine, and Limp Bizkit for graduate school.
Much like using the car you were driving as a yardstick for measuring time, what's playing on the radio is much the same way. It's neat the way our brains are wired - that a song, a simple juxtaposition of vocals, drums, and guitar, can evoke memories of a phase of one's life. I'm told that it's much the same with certain smells, like the smell of the ocean or chlorine from a pool (I have no sense of smell, so I wouldn't know); even certain sounds can evoke powerful memories - for me, the sound of "peepers" in the pond down the street are the surest sign of summer I can think of.
So, what's on your soundtrack?
That is all.
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13 comments:
"Former" Metalhead? Dude, either you is one or you be 6 Feet Under. Doesn't mean you have to listen to the Modern Stuff, but to give up Metal? How can one go out in a Blaze of Glory if the Background Music in one's Head is Carly Simon?
I would have to say one of the top songs that does it for me it "TIME" by Pink Floyd
I have umpteen thousands of songs on my server. A lot of classic rock. Since I listen to it all the time, they no longer bring back old memories, unlike hearing a song you have not heard in a long time.
In high school (class of 1969) I drove a 1960 Comet, and listened to classic rock. I still listen to the classic rock quite a bit.
"Nirvana and Pearl Jam took over in college, and Offspring, Rage Against the Machine, and Limp Bizkit" That's why he's former Les. He gave up headbanging for a flannel shirt. :) Although I'm giving you rage against the machine. LOL This is part of the reason I have no real memories of the 90's. Prior to that thoug I actually have songs that remind me of pretty specific memories not just time periods. Funny how you remember thing.
Moody Blues' "For My Lady"
Beach Boy "Wouldn't It Be Nice"
Hard to listen to after First Love dumped me.
CCR and BTO beating out the rhythm as I drove I-95 to college. Damn! I miss that '68 Cutlass SS.
Classical music played over my FM converter (I couldn't afford an 8-track) when commuting to local comm. college. Traffic too heavy for rock.
First job! New car! Cassette player!! Bagpipes and brass bands render any speed limit moot.
Years later my wife and I cruse down 95 to visit her folks with a CD changer full of 60's rock and, when we hit the Florida line, Jimmy Buffett.
And the best rock movie soundtrack is FM. You can cover lots of miles with that.
I have a bunch of music soundtracks. Some remind me of when the wife and I were first dating. Others take me back to high school, some back to time spent in scouts. Some music takes me back to lan parties and I remember the games we were playing.
Speaking of smell induced flashbacks, when moving the ties for Joe the smell of the creosote brought back summers spent at scout camp on Hood Canal and jumping off the pier at BF 30 in the morning. The interesting thing was it was like a chain reaction because then my brain through of the smell of the ocean and I remembered scuba diving in Hood Canal and elsewhere in the Puget Sound.
The human mind is an amazing thing.
Creedence, Grand funk Railroad and Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Pink Floyd sounds wimpy to me. My CD changer is loaded with AC/DC, Metallica, ZZ Top, Ted Nugent, Skynyrd, Judas Priest, etc. I've got 20+ years on you and I get some strange stares from people seeing the gray-haired dude listening to hard rock and metal. It also keeps my liberal neighbors away particularly when I'm listening to it while reloading in my garage.
TAK
Pat Benatar - "In The Heat Of The Night". Reminds me of piloting a '75 Buick Electra 225 down a snowy country road. Even when I listen to it on CD today I mentally add the 'kerchunk' of the track change of the 8-track player at the appropriate spot in "Helter Skelter".
Dock of the Bay, Otis Redding,
Anything Cream, and Creadance
Steppenwolf Born to be Wild, road music..
IN the Ghetto and Suspicios Minds Elvis Prestly
I'm a late child of the 60s.
Eck!
Family Force 5 reminds me of my grandma's funeral. Yeah, it's weird.
I was doing high school about the time you were doing grad school. I was big into punk and prof rock at the time, so Seven Mary Three, Fishbone, Rancid, and Alice in Chains all take me back to good friends and shit cars. I know as well as anybody that memory is better than reality, but there was something great about rolling with a couple good buddies in an 85 Cutlass Ciera, or one of my buddies' equally craptastic high school rides.
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