So I was in Southern Indiana last weekend, driving to a small town in the middle of no where. I love road trips for two main reasons: The scenery and landscape of the surroundings, as well as the tunes/sing-a-long sessions with everyone in the car. In fact, I’m known to make a CD for every specific road trip. It’s something I love and miss doing. (My Sony Vaio is on its death-bed and currently not able to burn CDs anymore. I’m on the verge of replacing her with my first ever Mac. I know, it’s about time!)
But back to our road trip. Southern Indiana really can’t boast of much, but it does provide some picturesque scenery intersected by long, fairly lonesome highways that I’m slowly getting acquainted to.
On this trip, we went through the usual repertoire: Dave Matthews, a few mixes that had John Mayer and Third Eye Blind on them. But then, someone put in Weezer’s Blue album which suddenly whisked me out of Southern Hoosier-dom and into a completely different world. It was a stroll down memory lane.
Rocking out to the Sweater song, Buddy Holly and Say It Ain’t So, with the windows down on a beautiful evening, surrounded by cornfields was just great. But what struck me as even more profound was how this album mustered up memories that I hadn’t even thought about for the past few years.
More than just the Blue album, I feel like any song I listen to can relate to a specific memory. Whether it was my first basketball tournament or the first girl I dated or even my first holiday. I’m sure I could relate a song to any memory I’ve ever had.
Science states that the olfactory sense triggers a strong recollection of memories and that perhaps smell is the largest contributor to the memory process. I do agree with this connection.
But I’m also amazed at music’s ability to rekindle memories. Music is an art. Listen to Beethoven’s fifth or Vertical Horizon’s “You’re a God” and I’m sure you will be stimulated to paint your own imagery and create a fantasy world that is a uniquely subjective phenomena. Bono’s Sunday Bloody Sunday lyrics would probably spark feelings of the Save Tibet campaigns to an Asian, while it could merely bring back the younger drinking days at the local pub to an Irishman. See? Same lyrics, same tune, but completely different perspectives.
What do you think? Is there a song that you could relate to a specific memory? Let me know.
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hey you're welcome for popping that CD in :)... but a song that brings back specific memories for me is blue by eiffel 65... good old days of riding the bus to school and in fourth grade and listening to it all over the radio. good stuff.
ReplyDeletecompletely agree with you my guy on the music thing, every song i hear reminds of a time when...... but first off i wont to point on that macs are dumb, and second dont you think that your sony is trying to tell you that its time to stop burning cds and use a friggin IPOD(the one thing that is good about macs) but thirdly again i do have so many songs that bring up so many wonderful, and painful memories with one specific to point out, the first music video i ever saw which is my first memory that i still have, it was winter of 91/92 and i was flipping through the channels when i saw MJ's Black or White video on, during the song my mom informed me that we were moving, not sure what the significance of the move is seeing how there were multiple moves throughout my life but the fact that my youngest memory in my life is of the king of pop surely explains a lot about why i am who i am, weather that be black or white, and why i have a MJ shrine in my apartment right now.....good post my guy
ReplyDeletethere have been times where my friends and i will be talking about things we've done, and i'll space out on a specific memory we share... that is, until my mind registers the event with the song that was playing in the background.
ReplyDeletemusic is one of the best ways to remember things. why do you think we are taught to make memorization easier by making the facts into some sort of song? our sense of hearing is a very deep-rooted factor in our brains. which explains why i ALWAYS have a playlist stuck on repeat in my cerebrum.
kudos!