The Same Old Song

I was reading a message board the other day and came across a thread called "What songs always bring up a memory for you?". I’ve always linked memories, times and places, people, etc. with music. I guess that the more senses that you get involved, the better and stronger the memory is. Anyway, I took a quick scan of my iTunes and found a few...

Alice in Chains "Angry Chair" - I remember listening to the "Dirt" album (on cassette, mind you) while walking home from high school freshman year. It really is the perfect song for an angsty, brooding teenager... and I most certainly was one.

Black Crowes "Hard to Handle" - This song (or anything off of Shake Your Moneymaker) reminds me of a day trip that I took in while living in Eau Claire. A few of us drove out to a beach somewhere in picturesque Northern Wisconsin. I don’t remember what the place was called, but there were islands, some waterfalls, and a bunch of frisbee-playing college students. Everyone was on one of the islands, and the only way to get there was to hold all the shit you brought over your head and walk on the bottom of the lake. The water was up to my eyes. Good day. Didn't drown.

Charlie Daniels Band "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" - I was in Las Vegas for Ben’s wedding. Dave, Ben’s friend Nate, and I were the last people from the group out that night. After a little gambling and drinking, we decided to call it a night too. As we walked back into our hotel, we heard a band playing in one of the casino corner bars. It was just a cover band, but we decided to check them out for a while. "A while" became all night. There were many more rounds of drinks. There was dancing with middle aged women. There was general obnoxious behavior. The band said that they were going to play one more song, but they would let the crowd choose. It was either going to be "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" or The Eagles "Hotel California." I, like The Dude, hate the fucking Eagles. Most of the polite crowd seemed to want "Hotel California." But a few people, including us drunken hyenas at the corner table, loudly demanded "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." We won; they lost. We danced; we shamed our families for generations to come. The night got better after that, but that’s a story for another time.

Dave Matthews Band "Two Step" - I really don’t have any feelings about the Dave Matthews Band. In my travels, I generally hear this band discussed mostly by two groups of people. Sure, there are casual fans out there (I’ve met a few of them), but I run into Group 1 and Group 2 more often. Group 1 is frat boy, hemp necklace, college douche bags who love "Dave" (as they call him, as if he’s on their fucking speed dial) and would listen to anything he does and praise it unconditionally. The guy could make an album that consists solely of him farting on a snare drum and these goons would call it the next White Album. Group 2 is indie rock, hipster pricks who say his name with the same kind of revulsion that a Holocaust survivor would say Hitler’s. These tight pants wearing pseudo-Bohemians gauge a person’s worth by their taste in music, movies, and other media. Remember, it’s not what you’re like that matters; it’s what you like. So consider me Swiss in the great DMB wars. Anyway. That song reminds me of many, many nights at Mel’s, where I watched Matt spend way too much of his money on booze. They played that song once a night. It was a welcome break from all the hip hop. Lots of build up and not much of a story there, huh?

In Flames "Pinball Map" - I bought the Clayman CD right at the end of my sophomore year of college. It was my first year at UWM. I was happy to be back in Milwaukee. The weather was beautiful. I had reconnected with my friends here. Everything about that summer seemed to start off right. All was well in the world. This song reminds me of good times, as most Swedish death metal should.

Jimmy Buffett "Fins" - This song reminds me of the following winter (that would be fall semester of junior year). I remember the shitty cold weather, piles of snow, slush and ice everywhere... basically, winter in Wisconsin. The song itself is about a girl that travels south on vacation and gets swarmed by guys trying to fuck her. Why did I like this song: a desire to leave the cold weather or latent homosexuality? You be the judge.

Led Zeppelin "Fool in the Rain" - Back before the days of MP3 players, I carried a CD player with me everywhere. Since I have the attention span of a gnat, I would make mix CDs of a bunch of different artists and listen to those during the day at school between classes. I would never label these CDs either, so I’d have half a dozen blank CDs on me at any given time. That added to the randomness of whatever I listened to. I remember walking out of my last exam of college (undergrad) at UWM, putting a CD into the player, and hitting play. This is the song that played. It sounds cheesy and made up (it is cheesy but not made up) but it started raining while I was walking across campus to the union. Seriously raining too. We’re talking Biblical downpour. I ended up taking shelter under an outcropping by the library. I just stood there for 20 minutes or so, watching the rain, relishing the fact that I was now a college graduate, looking forward to starting law school in the fall, and just generally fucking pleased with myself.

Pixies "All Over the World" - This or anything off of Bossanova reminds me of my fall exams of my last year of law school. I played the shit out of that album while studying during the weeks before exams. I also had a huge paper to write, and I can’t do that in silence. There was also some general shittiness going on in life at that moment. Luckily, The Pixies rule and can help me get through anything.

I could go on and on (and I may edit this at a later date to do so), but I think this paints an accurate picture of how linked music and memories are, at least for me. It’s kind of interesting that most of the songs that I listed aren’t really ones that I listen to actively. I don’t own a single album from the Black Crowes, Charlie Daniels, Dave Matthews, or Jimmy Buffett. I certainly don’t listen to any of them with any regularity. Kinda odd, isn't it? That's par for the course for me, though.