My friend Marlene gave me a book she had just finished reading in her book club called "Love is a Mix Tape". The author, Rob Sheffield, tells the story of how he and his wife were brought together by their common love of music, and the role that same music took for him after her sudden death at the age of 31 from an embulism. The book got me thinking about how music has played a role in my own life. How certain songs have come to represent certain periods in my past, and some that remind me of specific people and events. There are songs I've shared with ex boyfriends that still need to be skipped past when they come up on shuffle on my iPod, and even though I'll never listen to them again I need to know they're there. Because if the memory disappears, well... That's all I have left. And then there are others that bring a smile to my face and never get old, no matter how many thousands of times I've heard it and sang along because it brings me back to some place in time that I'll never see again, but during the 4 minutes and 30 seconds the song plays, I'm right back there.
So I've put together my own little list of the songs that seem to stand out to me, in tribute to friends, times, and my adolescence. In no particular order:
-Sublime 40 oz to Freedom. Entire album. Summer of 1997, Bedford Park. My first summer of freedom, 15 years old. I'm pretty sure that was the only song we listened to that entire summer.
-Collective Soul, Run. There was a little trail on Albany's campus that led behind Indian Quad to the road behind campus. I think I stumbled across it looking for my first job at the undergrad admissions office. No one ever seemed to be on that path, but I used to love to walk it with my discman when I wanted to be by myself for a while. Yes, discman. These were pre-iPod days. And since there were no iPods, I had in my possession one CD, my modern-day version of a mix tape, with some random songs I burned from Napster. Oh, how I miss the technology from the beginning of the millennium. All I remember being on that CD was this Collective Soul song, and whenever I hear it I'm 18 again, back on that trail where my little rabbit Trixie went on to carry out my legacy when I was forced to set her free at the end of the semester.
-Sweet Caroline. Senior year of college. I don't remember why a Neil Diamond song was as popular as it was in 2004, but every time we went to T's (our senior year bar) this song had to come on the juke box at least 3 times during the night. And the whole bar sang along, everyone chimed in at least for the Bom Bom Boms.
-ABBA, Dancing Queen. Cjap, the summer before I left for college. I don't know why this song makes me think of you but it had something to do with Seaside Heights. Do you remember?
-Here Comes the Sun, The Beatles. Summer of 2008. Melissa and I were heading to Margate on the shore for July 4th weekend to meet our new friends from Israel. It was taking a long time to get there. We spent a night at her parents house in Long Branch to break up the driving, and on our way out the car ran out of gas and Melissa had to walk to the gas station to get more. By the time we got there we were a little bit irritable that it took so long, so we threw on our bathing suits and went to the beach to start having fun. Someone put this song on, and suddenly everyone was happy, the sun was shining, our friends all appeared and kickstarted off an amazing weekend. Whenever I hear this song I know I'm going to have an amazing day.
-Boston, Augustana. The summer before my brother went to college we took a trip up to Bear Mountain to do some hiking. We got a little bit lost on the trail, it rained and we slipped and thought how awful it would be if we died right there and Adam never made it to college (Emerson is in Boston, hence why this one reminds me of him). We did make it out alive, and on the car ride home Adam told me this was the song that was getting him ready for his journey, the next step in life. Now it's my song for him, and my memory of that awesome day at Bear Mountain.
-Too Big To Fit in Here, from The Sweetest Thing soundtrack. Danielle and I always have to jump around and mimic this song and accompanying dance whenever we hear it, or put it on when we're getting ready to go out.
-Secondhand Seranade, Vulnerable. Okay, this is one that belongs in the skip when you hear it batch, but it's one I can't skip over. My ex sent this song to me randomly at 3am weeks after we broke up. No note attached, just the song. Whenever it pops up I try to listen to the lyrics to make sense of what his purpose was in sending this, but to this day I've never been able to figure it out. One of my personal enigmas I'll never know the answer to.
-So Happy Together. Pimp Daddy Stu Kess took me for a father daughter day to 6 Flags when I was about 10 years old. This song came up in the car, and he told me a story about how he first met my mom, and this was their song. Gail claims this isn't true and was never their song, but when it played on the radio in the car we sang along, and I always think of him, their happy marriage, and that day at 6 flags with my dad. I also nearly rode my first roller coaster that day, the Great American Scream machine, but after making him wait online for an hour, freaked out when I got to the front of the line and refused to go on the ride.
-Blink 182, What's My Age Again. Freshman year of college. I don't know if that's when this album came out, but I know it's all the bars played that year and I still associate it with that time.
-I'll Be Missing You, dedication to Biggie. Summer of 1997(?). It's all everyone listened to once it came out. But for me, most specifically, I remember taking the bus out to Rockaway beach, which was a pain in the ass to get to, but Liz brought along her boom box so we could blast it on repeat all day at the beach.
That's all I got right now. This was a fun little activity/trip down memory lane. Especially when I'm gone almost 2 months already, it's nice to have things that remind me of home.
I do remember and it started from a bar in Bay Ridge lol.
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