Thirteen musical memory triggers

Anduin* writes:

List thirteen songs that when hearing them, take you back to a moment in your life.

Never one to say no to a beautiful woman, I thought it would be best to comply.

I can’t write a Thirteen like this without seriously dating myself. It’s inevitable; any of you who think I’m thirty-something are soon gonna learn otherwise.

Hell, I can remember Petula Clark, The Brazil 66, and The Association. Yeah, you heard me, The Association. I’m that old.

Groovy. (Aw, c’mon, you have to click on that link just to check out Ed Sullivan. And, yeah, I can remember Ed, too.)

1. The Animals, “House of the Rising Sun.”

I’m four years old and I’ve just taken my Sunday shower. It’s dark outside, so it must be winter. “House of the Rising Sun” is playing on the radio.

I have no idea what this song is about, but it chokes me up. I’ve always been a sucker for songs in a minor key.

2. Carly Simon, “You’re So Vain.”

Okay, how many people have had the thought, “But this song IS about him!” I have. Probably a thousand times.

Anyway, memory lane: my brother and I are sitting cross-legged in front of my parents’ console stereo (something like this, eh, Sis?), and we’re arguing about the lyrics.

“It’s, ‘you watched yourself GO ON.'”

“Go on what? That makes no sense. And it’s, ‘The wife of a cloaksman’ –”

“Cloaksman? That isn’t even a word! It’s close friend.”

“Is so a word! It means ‘spy.’ As in, ‘cloak and dagger.’ As in, ‘Some underworld spy or the wife of a cloaksman –”

“You’re full of it!”

“No, YOU’RE full of it!”

And so on. If only Miss Simon had had better articulation.

3. The Dominos, “Layla.” (No video, but this is a link to the long version, which TOTALLY ROCKS, so you don’t need a damned video.) This and the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin,” which I always thought was “Knights in White Satin.”

Those two affected me so deeply, I wrote about them some time ago.

4. Harry Chapin, damn him and his “Cat’s in the Cradle.”

Yup, wrote about this one, too.

The song came out during one of our Voyage of the Damned years and the AM stations plastered it all over the airwaves. On and on and on, a daily radio experience, often two or three times a day. (Meanwhile, my dad was racking up the miles. He took pride in making the cross-country journey in six days or less.) It depressed the hell out of me, maybe because I knew Chapin was talking about me, maybe because I was and am a sucker for minor key songs.

See? I’m consistent.

5. Albert Hammond, “It Never Rains in Southern California.”

Yet another Top 40 number which dogged us on one of our Voyages of the Damned — this time, 1972. When I hear this one, even a Muzak version, I’m back in my dad’s stinky Pontiac, or Chevy, or whatever the hell that was. Hey, I’m not a car person.

Whatever happened to Albert Hammond? According to Wikipedia, he cut a song called “I Don’t Wanna Die in an Air Disaster,” then two years later crashed his Cessna. Okay, that was mean. Believe it or not, the guy cut a record in the UK as late as 2005. Go, Albert!

6. Steely Dan’s “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.” (Sorry, that’s the crappy live version.)

I seem to recall that that whole album was awesome, but aside from “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” the only other song I remember is “Any Major Dude Will Tell You.” Anyway, summer of ’74, my friend Mike asked me to cover his paper route for five days while he went on vacation. We never talked money. I helped him out for a few days in order to learn the route, and for my troubles he’d buy me a Coke.

Paper Boying (or whatever they call it) was tough. You had to put in some hours to do that job! After the third day, I’d had enough, but I stuck it out. Someone had to do it.

(That was in the old days, when kids couldn’t expect their parents to bail them out of anything.)

For five days of hell, five days lost from my precious summer vacation, I made a little under seven bucks. I was pissed. Oh, the song? I don’t know; I think it was playing on someone’s radio while I was folding papers.

Oooh, Pretzel Logic (the song) was good!

7. Chicago, “If You Leave Me Now.”

What a sappy song . . . but oh boy does this one stir memories. I have just changed high schools, have just left behind all the little droogs I’ve hung with since first grade or kindergarten. New school, don’t know a soul in the world save for my sister, who teaches English here.

They pipe music in at the Canteen — Top 40, of course. And it seems like every lunchtime, they play “If You Leave Me Now.” Maybe there was resonance in the idea of leaving?

8. B-52s, “Give Me Back My Man.”

If there’s one link you click on, MAKE IT THIS ONE. Cindy Wilson ROCKS.

Okay, so the memory: I’ve just broken up with my high school gf (“just” being a strained word here since the break-up took place over the course of a year and only really came to a head Christmas of 1980). I went over to see my friend Louis, who was no help at all. What did he know about girlfriends, anyway, let alone breaking up? I leave Louis’s house, get into my mom’s ’66 Mustang — a car that carries a lot of memories of me and the gf — turn on the radio, and there it is, “Give Me Back My Man.”

Probably says loads about my gender confusion that “Give Me Back My Man” would grab me by the nuts like it did. Hell, the old gf still considers me one of the girls.

Ahem. Change subject. Quickly.

9. Elvis Costello, “Radio Radio.”

Yes, I saw the famous performance of “Radio Radio” on Saturday Night Live (on TV, that is). I wonder what the producers expected Elvis to play? And why was SNL pissed off that he played “Radio Radio”? Weirdly touchy of them, IMO.

My brother, my cousin Barry, and I were in our living room watching SNL when Elvis did his thing. We were all floored, but Barry said it best with two words: “What energy!”

10. Madness, “One Step Beyond.”

Hard to pick only one song that conjures the dorms for me, but this one comes close. The Clash’s “London Calling” is another, or maybe (in a bad way) some of The Kinks’ “hits,” or as we called them, “shits.”

I never hated The Kinks when I was in high school. In the dorms, though, I lived next to a loser who blared the same Kinks albums day and night. The asswipe flunked out after his first quarter, but oh, those were the longest ten weeks of my life.

Madness, like Elvis Costello and the B-52s and the Talking Heads . . . they were all such eye-openers for me. Only four years earlier, I had been listening to Elton John and America. Only one year earlier, I would have counted Yes and Genesis as my favorite bands.

Music really sucked in the 70s.

11. Dead Kennedys, “We’ve Got a Bigger Problem Now.”

No one could dish social criticism like Jello Biafra. Here are the lyrics. Prescient:

Welcome to 1984
Are you ready for the third world war?!?
You too will meet the secret police
They’ll draft you and they’ll jail your niece

You’ll go quitely to boot camp
They’ll shoot you dead, make you a man
Don’t you worry, it’s for a cause
Feeding global corporations’ claws

Die on our brand new poison gas
El Salvador or Afghanistan
Making money for President Reagan
And all the friends of President Reagan

My college roommate Al (not his real name, since I’m getting ready to badmouth him) introduced me to the Dead Kennedys. Al was 6′ 10″, give or take a few inches. His feet hung off the end of his twin bed starting somewhere around his knees. Al liked music that criticized The Man and he enjoyed inviting Jehovah’s Witnesses into our apartment just to argue with them. Al also hated the local supermarket’s “Scot’s Buy” ad campaign. Al, a big ol’ Scot if ever there was one, liked to claim they were fostering an ethnic stereotype. “How would you like it if they called them Jew Buys? You wouldn’t like it, would you?”

After his girlfriend broke up with him, he decided she had to be a dyke. In Al’s world, this was a bad thing, and he let folks know it by ripping into her at every opportunity. In truth, she was a sweet gal. Karen and I ran into her a few years later and had a great big laugh over Al and how lucky she’d been to dodge that bullet.

Al married the daughter of some AT&T bigwig, and he soon took an executive level job at AT&T. I suspect he fathered lots of tall blond sons and made money by the bushel. Yes, friends, Al sold out to The Man.

12. Pink Floyd’s “Careful With That Axe, Eugene.”

Two memories:

• Berkeley. Ridge Project (a co-op). We’re passing around clove cigarettes (hey, remember — potential employers might be lurking here!) and digging on Ummagumma.
• We’re coming back from Tahoe . . . my first skiing trip of my life. Al’s driving. I’m in the cab of the truck, dozing, and Al’s up front with his best friend. Ummagumma’s on the tape player. Suddenly, his best friend screams and pops the tape out. He couldn’t take it anymore.

13. Deep Purple, “Smoke on the Water.”

Yeah, I’m heading back in time with this one to junior high school dances, when every band had to know Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” and the Dooby Brothers’ “China Grove.”

Dancing meant flinging your arms and legs around in a reasonably symmetrical fashion. Slow dances meant hugging some girl who would be a head taller than you two years later, but for now, she was just the right height for the two of you not to look foolish.

In retrospect, I only danced with the “smart” girls, when I should have danced with the one(s) who were really interested in me. Dumb ass.

***

What are your musical memory triggers? You know how it works . . . leave me a comment and I’ll leave you some lurve. See ya tomorrow, cuz I’m hitting the sack.

Lyvvie’s husband is flying out my way. Wish her luck with the kids!

Linda Winfree’s answering questions over at Kate’s place. I think. It’s none too clear.

D.

*Anduin, why do you love me with cheese?