2 images for The Trio by Ennio Morricone (off The Good, The Bad and The Ugly): the sadness and passion of the music makes me think of some white painted church in SW USA or in Mexico. Outside the priest is pleading with a teenage lad who he’d hoped would follow him into the priesthood. Instead the boy has decided to go off to the city to make his fortune. The camera (mounted on a helicopter) pulls away as we see the priest in tears and on his knees outside the church, as the boy walks away forever, carrying his kitbag.
The trumpet by itself (without the rest of the orchestra) makes me think of someone playing it in a sweaty bar near the docks in Marseille.
The weird thing about Year of The Cat, for me, is that it creates two conflicting mental images - the initial lines about Bogart and Lorre create a noir image, Casablanca. But the description of the woman is technicolour, somehow is completely East Asian - some place like Kashmir or Southeast Asia (Although, nowadays, I immediately picture Raina from Agents of Shield). That incongruity has always struck me.
The modern-ish track I find most immediately evocative is Road Tripping by Red Hot Chili Peppers. It reminds me so much of traveling around our south coast (which is a lot like Route 1 and Big Sur, I gather) - fog in the early morning, sun blinking off the ocean, surf pounding on the cliffside, little beaches strung out along the rocky coast.
An oldie: Johnny Mathis’s Moonlight in Vermont. Tons of people recorded this song.
*Pennies in a stream,
Falling leaves, a sycamore,
Moonlight in Vermont.
Icy finger waves,
Ski trails down a mountainside,
Snow light in Vermont . . .
*
By the way, both Under the Milky Way and Somewhere Down The Crazy River are truly great songs. I can’t really picture anything more than what’s already in the lyrics (although I’m pretty sure that what they play at Nick’s Café is this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Train_%28album%29 :)).
Anyways I just wanted to thank you for reminding me of them. I don’t listen to them as often as I should.
That’s a good one. But even more I like his “Time Passages.” Heard that one just the other day, as a matter of fact. A girl comes towards you You once used to know You reach out your hand But you’re all alone in those…
The lyrics to Red Barchetta are obviously very specific, the music a perfect accompaniment. I often wonder how close the picture in my head is to the one in Messrs Peart, Lifeson and Lee.
It always gives me a very vivid mental image of sitting in the backseat of my Grandfather’s Chrysler Cordoba. HUGE bench seats. When you’re 8 years old, cars of that size seemed massive! Everything I see is just oozing the 1970’s - his wide lapel suit, my Grandmother’s hair in a blue/gray beehive, the push button AM radio…on our way home from church for Sunday dinner, which was always a roast of some sort.
Well first off, when my young ears first heard this in 1976, I thought it was Engelbert Humperdinck so I don’t know if that has anything to do with my mental picture.
It always brings to my mind sort of a Las Vegas montage. Lots of red velvet and dark wood and and disco balls; a casino or nightclub type of place. I don’t picture Mr. Rawls (or Mr. Humperdinck, for that matter)on a stage or anything, but there’s some vague trace of a man with a vested suit, only his jacket is off and his sleeves are rolled up. It’s very " slick".
What?! What sort of half-witted fools are down on Joan Osborne? I must own three different copies of Relish - I wear them out. “Right Hand Man” is a great song - listening to it, I see the light of early morning in the city, casting unfamiliar shadows, and smell asphalt and diesel fumes. But the song that paints the most vivid picture in my head is “Crazy Baby” - a tightly-drawn portrait of depression and dementia.
Oh, your hands are really shaking something awful
As you smoke your twenty-seventh cigarette.
How long have you been sitting in the darkness?
You forget.
Going back to all the 70’s and earlier songs posted, I don’t think it’s coincidence that these songs came out before MTV and before every new single had an accompanying video. You don’t get to make a movie of the song in your head - some filmmaker has already imposed his or her vision on you.
[QUOTE=Slow Moving Vehicle;18238052
Going back to all the 70’s and earlier songs posted, I don’t think it’s coincidence that these songs came out before MTV and before every new single had an accompanying video. You don’t get to make a movie of the song in your head - some filmmaker has already imposed his or her vision on you.[/QUOTE]
Well said. As I’ve been thinking about the songs on my list I’ve had to stop and try to remember if I’ve actually seen a video for it or if it is indeed my own original vision. The oldest ones I’m pretty sure not; for the more current ones, I don’t *think *I have but I suppose I could have some subconscious memory of it.
Also, does anyone else find themselves imagining in video format? As in, the way you picture things has almost come to play out in your head like a movie? I’m sure I have not phrased that coherently but I guess I’m trying to ask if watching music videos has influenced the way your mind’s eye works when you hear music.
