I’m listening to Joe Satriani (Always with me, Always with you) for maybe the millionth time and thinking about music, about the ways in which it follows me throughout my life. I’ve always marked the passage of time in many ways – by season and temperature, by location, by the people I’m with, but always by music.
Sometimes its what was popular at that time, or what coincidentally played in the background during a key moment.
I remember hurtling down Fairfax parkway to the sounds of Peter Gabriel seeing just how fast the Mustang would go while Kelly steered from the passenger seat, god knows why. I remember nodding out in the back seat of a much nedeed ride to the sounds of Journey while my dog and I defrosted and dried out from standing in the freezing rain with my thumb out for 6 hours.
Music accompanies these memories as much as any person within them, and sometimes even more so. It is their companion, and brings me back in ways that weaken me, and sting my eyes with tears, or fill me so completely I want to run around the room and yell and scream with joy.
But more often than not it’s just what happens to emerge, quietly without any real fanfare to speak of – that then forever binds itself to that particular moment. Drifting down from a barely seen speaker in a bar, or accompaniment to a commercial on the TV. And then that music, which already has so many amazing associations in my past, gets to align with a new era of life and experiences lending it a new depth of nostalgia.
It’s also always wonderful to hear something new that I find worthy of adding to to that seemingly limitless selection. I’ve found I can quite accurately mark what kind of mood I’ve been in based on the latest additions to the pool. Looking at the past few months it goes without saying that there have been some ups and downs.
What’s really interesting to me today is how eternal so much of my music seems to be and how random. That even though others may hear guitar solos that smack of the early 90′s, Psychedelic nonsense from a forgotten era, obscure jazz, horrible pop or a million other things… To me it’s just another sip of red wine, another taste of dark chocolate. Something to savor and roll around on my tongue and enjoy again and again.
What music marked the most memorable events in your life?
um…hello? GD and some Phish maybe?????
Comin around again it seems…