Musical Memories

[lnr]

Was just listening to Suzanne Vega's The Queen and the Soldier and thinking about something that occurred to me last night might make a vaguely interesting post. Various bits of music remind me of different bits of my life. Sometimes of specific people or places, sometimes just of being a certain age. That Suzanne Vega track doesn't seem to have any particular resonances of its own, but it is one that I really love, and which always hits me with the shivers. Sometimes tracks can change from triggering one memory to another. Some of them are romantic links, others just reminders of friendship and fun. Sometimes the track springs to mind when thinking of things, sometimes I only remember the link when I hear the music.

Terrorvision's first couple of albums will always remind me of Ian. Ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with reminds me of flirting with Tom at Purgatory, or whatever the Oxford goth night was at that time, but also of August. Temple of Love always reminds me of David, while This Corrosion makes me think "He's a vet", or reminds me of being a teenager at school and the reaction of our music teacher to us apparently listening to something choral. The Passenger brings back CUWoCS parties, and Road to Nowhere RPGsoc/OUSFG Christmas parties. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers album By the Way will always remind me of how lovely Janet is. Placebo's Nancy Boy always makes me smile and think of Kitty. For some reason Belinda Carlisle makes me think of JT, and The Bangles' Eternal Flame will always bring back embarrassing memories of a long-held teenage crush on my mate Phil. Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run and Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms (the albums) will always live back-to-back in my mind, and remind me of being 11 and dancing alone in the moonlight in our back room in Kippax, in the silly girly pyjamas I owned at the time and loved. There are many many more.

They all seem to be pretty happy associations really. I can't think of any sad ones at the moment, except where they're tinged a little with sadness for love lost, but for most part there's more good memories than bad.

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[acronym.livejournal.com]

Albums have huge associations for me. Radiohead's "The Bends" is one, and I might write that down one day, but it'd take a thousand words or more; it's very, very intensely personal, and every song on that record means something to me in about three different ways. I can barely stand to listen to the record much of the time now; it's not that I don't like it, but quite the opposite - that I love it too much, and I did at a couple of times in my life when I really needed something to hold on to, and many of the associations are too raw and painful to want to feel again...

i want to live, breathe
i want to be part of the human race

says it all, really.

Mogwai's first record reminds me of being scared and confused during my first year at university; I remember reeling backwards off my chair, literally, at the huge dynamics during "Like Herod". Massive Attack's "Blue Lines", and the song "Protection", remind me of lying in bed at home - aged sixteen or so, I guess - listening to it on my personal CD player, hiding from the world on slow Sunday mornings. Mansun's "Six" I haven't listened to in over two years; the sound of a band having a nervous breakdown, it soundtracked much of my second year here.

I love all these records, because although the memories are bad - in some cases, the worst I have - they kept me going through those times. I know every note, every word, every rest so well they might as well be part of me.

---

More recently, more of them have been good than bad, though; Ulrich Schnauss's "A Strangely Isolated Place" with a party at Kate's and a concert at the Kingston Arms, the Hidden Cameras' first record with another concert and my first days on the radio.

Still, I have records I turn to; Teenage Fanclub, and of all things Simon and Garfunkel, when the world is too much. Maybe I'm a romantic after all.

- A