I mentioned on another thread the other day that the Oasis CD single of Whatever, with It’s Good To Be Free and Half the World Away reminded me, very specifically, of a time and place in my life and how I was feeling at the time (not particularly good feelings, I must add). It got me thinking about all the other songs that have a similar effect, whether they bring back good memories or bad, and there are many, but I don’t think there’s any song that has that effect more than this one, from the pen of the brilliant (although more people really need to realise this) Joe Pernice.
This album came out about 20 years ago, in the several rotten months between a relationship with the love of my life ending and me going back and finding her [dear reader, we married 2 years later and the youngest of our 2 children turned 10 yesterday]. When we were apart, listening to this was like a cold blade going straight through my chest and, even today, when I listen to it I get a momentary flash of panic, just in case I wake up back in 2000.
Anybody else have songs that evoke a specific memory? And could I be forward enough to ask you to elaborate?
A couple that immediately spring to mind….
Eurythmics / Right By Your Side
Not a specific memory, but it always brings back general memories of being back at school, carefree, and getting ready for O levels (it being 1983). Every time I hear the song, I always get the same feelings / memories (in fact I was listening to it today as part a general playlist and was thinking of putting together a post tomorrow on the songs I played…… )
Ben E King / Stand By Me
Simple – we used it for our entrance at our wedding back in 1996 and so we play on our wedding anniversary every year (at least).
The then marriage was, in possibly unpoetic terms, a car crash, to escape I’d spend hours in the local forest with the dogs, just walking the hills.. As a rule we go we’d go later in the evening when there wasn’t another soul around, only coming back down as dusk was turning into night. It was incredibly peaceful, it allowed me to reflect, wonder and hope. On one particular path, which I would take every time we walked there, I would watch the planes in the sky either on a hold loop as they waited to land at Manchester airport or making their way directly to the airport. I’m no plane spotter, in fact I have bugger all interest in aircraft but I’d watch those planes, or more accurately I watched the navigation lights blinking, it was almost as though they were talking to me, saying, “hey, don’t worry things will get better”.
Then, for the best of both our sakes the marriage ended.
Around 4 months later I bought the new Eels album Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, I didn’t pay much heed to the title until on listening to the track Blinking Lights (For me) and hearing E sing..
Blinking lights on the airplane wings
Up above the trees
Blinking down a Morse code signal
Especially for me
Ain’t no rainbow in the sky
In the middle of the night
But the signal’s coming through
One day I will be alright again
He’d summed everything up that was in my mind as I watched those lights, the despair, the emptiness, the sadness, the hope.. and those the other verses summed my life up at that precise moment, my marriage was a car crash, my (our) life was up in the air and yet I I knew, seemingly from watching those airplane lights that that one day I’d be on the ‘ground’ once more.
Bloody heck, he must have been in my head all those evenings I was walking those forest paths, he must have been, right?
And that one day did come, I met the person I was supposed to be with, we married and she walked down the aisle to Theme From Blinking Lights
And to o this day, whenever I listen to Blinking Lights (for me) , I’m back in that forest, with my two dogs, only now I’m smiling because I know that it will be alright.
Ruddy heck, there’s a film there, surely! That’s some coincidence. I can imagine your jaw dropping when you listened to the words.
A couple
Shades of Scarlet conquering by Joni Mitchell. 17 years old and a short lived but intense relationship ended abruptly. I didn’t know what I had done wrong, still don’t.
Your mother and I and 5 years old by Loudon Wainwright – both chronicled my divorce and what I was feeling. Don’t play then so much now as no longer have any relevance,
In Spite of ourselves by John Prine and Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits – they are my wife and I’s songs – much happier times – we don’t have any sad songs and I hope it stays that way.
We have discussed funeral songs and if I go first it will be 2 of:
Neil Young – Four strong winds
Lucinda Williams – Sweet old World or Side of the Road
Leonard Cohen – Hey that’s no way to say goodbye
In 1966 between school and university I went to the States on the Greyhound 99 days for $99 thing, and this song was playing everywhere I went, in bus stations, cafes and on the radio. There were other more potent songs around, not least Good Vibrations and Summer in the City, but this one has stuck for some reason.
I love that song. This isn’t a challenge, but I don’t think I have heard a bad version of it.
A few
The Jam – Thick As Thieves was my Apprenticeship song for my group of mates, and over time it followed the lyrical track of the song.
Cater USM – Shoppers Paradise was the Apprentice House Party song. Turned up full blast for a Living Room Mosh Pit (even better when we rigged up a strobe light)
Robbie Williams – Strong. The soundtrack to my divorce
Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen In Love. The reason for the above (and broken copies of Sacred Reich, Saxon – Denim & Leather, and a T,Rex Picture Disc box set)
Foo Fighters – Learn To Fly. Music as self-therapy and instruction when I moved back in to my Mum and Dads
Stevie Wonder – I Believe When I Fall In Love (It Will Be Forever). Music as self-therapy worked
And for most of the last couple of years, my new mantra:
Stiff Little Fingers – My Dark Places. Specifically the Jake Burns acoustic demo – made me think “hang on – I need to sort something out here”.
The full-bodied noisy version on the album does the job too,
Cripes! Has everyone on the AW been divorced? I’ve got a lot of ground to make up – still looking forward to meeting a human who can handle sewerscent..
I’ll just leave this here
Not divorced, but Any Trouble’s “Playing Bogart” – the slow version from ‘Wrong End of The Race” – soundtracked a particular break-up summer for me. There was a time when I couldn’t get to sleep without playing side three of that record – Wrong End of The Race/Learning the Game/Like a Man/Playing Bogart before bed.
I’ve never been divorced, largely because I’ve taken the precaution of never getting married. Not that that is any guarantee of avoiding heartache. Her name was Angie. Or that’s the name she used herself. I never called anything but Angela.
Late one night several years later, alone, in my cups and feeling very sorry for myself, I played every version of the Stones’ song I could find on YouTube, and about two o’clock in the morning I wrote a brief but heartfelt comment on one. Within half an hour a total stranger somewhere in America, a cool dude with short dredds and an enviable guitar collection if his profile picture was to be believed, had seen my post and correctly interpreted it as a howl of pain from a soul in distress.
He sent me a private message. He told me that he knew just how I felt, that every man has an Angie, and he signed off ‘Peace to you, my friend.’ His kindness and gentle compassion to someone he had never met half the world away had tears streaming down my cheeks all over again.
I started a similar thread back in May 2013, the evening before I got married, with this lesser known Roddy Frame/Aztec Camera track. It’s lesser known because the album version is terrible, ruined by a wine bar jazz production. Stripped down to just him with a guitar, I now regard it as one of his best. There’s a lovely version on Spotify from his Live in Ronnie Scott’s album but this is where I first recognised it as a gem. Three children later and listening to it now still takes me back to my mindset in my single days, quite content with my lot but recognising that it had its limitations, also the power of music to fit a mood… Stray
This, by Frightened Rabbit, seemed to me to capture a lot of who I was – and to a degree still am – at University Socials.
I met someone who lived a long way from me. We fell in love. She was married, I couldn’t work out how we could be together. When I left her to fly home I was listening to Gene Clark’s Out on the Side on my iPod on the plane. It fitted perfectly, I started crying uncontrollably.
The reality was different and we did end up together for a few years, got married and had a child together. Still can feel an echo of how I felt that day when I hear the song 16 years later.
I have two and they’ve limited themselves as to how often I am permitted to hear them.
Here’s one of them while I search for the other.
This song and performance of which, has been with me since childhood.
Here’s the thing about Scarborough Fair, a song I’m sure we’ve all heard hundreds of times.
I think I misunderstood the song’s title and first line for decades.
“Are you going to Scarborough Fair?”
I thought Scarborough Fair was some form of big event – a festival, if you like. With … you know, food and drink and various activities. Hot chestnuts. Beer. People having a good time. Maybe competitions, like who’s grown the largest leeks, or whatever. A sort of annual event. That was my interpretation of the title and opening line from when I first heard the song until a couple of years ago.
But then I realised that I’d almost certainly got it all wrong. The first line is actually:
“Are you going to Scarborough fair?” … with ‘fair’ spelt with a lower case ‘f’.
Therefore, ‘Scarborough fair’ is simply a poetic way of saying ‘the fair town of Scarborough’.
I sort of like my original interpretation better…
I’m glad someone else has puzzled over this. When I have mentioned in conversation I just get blank looks.
I agree with you; Fair is an adjective not a noun. A fair might make sense as somewhere that herbs are sold, but not as a place where his former true love lives.
Of course.
I think you got it right for your age.
OK, so when Mr Zimmerman wrote, from scratch, the surprisingly similar Girl From the North Country, he was, um, right, right?
I really like the version on the Imagined Village’s second album. Played it yesterday. Carthy plays it slightly woozy, almost trip-hoppy. As are several other tracks on it. Suits the weather and the slightly disconnected feel to life.
I am not sure I can unimagine a fairground in Scarborough. We went there for summer holdays on a few occasions – so I associate the place with funfairs, carousels, candy floss and all that. Yes, I do know he was probably writing about Scarborough in Massachusetts or somewhere.
Pretty sure it was written about the Scarborough up here in Yorkshire, but a few hundred years before Simon started writing songs.
Wow I have really doubled down on my ignorance there. I thought it was written for his wife, Carly Simon.
You sayin’ you probably thought that song was about her..
No – just a very weak joke to cover up my faux pas.
Apologies. The other one escapes me now.
Crazy Man Michael always reminds me of one terrible day in the forest……
Tweek tweek.
In the years BC (Before Children) I was Man Friday to an actual, living, breathing, professional songwriter. I was always terrified my confidences would make it into song.
One, A Song For A Friend, was written about a mutual acquaintance:
“This is a song for a friend
Who’ll hear it when
The cops come round
His open heart
His trousers down
So here it is
A song for friend
He knows who he is”
He never did write “My mother-in-law is a crazy Spaniard”. I do suspect aspects of other songs of the time might relate to me, but I’ve never asked. I really don’t want to know…