I enjoyed the favorite songs thread, but there are just too many to list. Here are two songs that aren’t favorites, but I cannot hear them now without these memories coming to me:
Reunited - this song came out right after my first girlfriend and I got back together after a long breakup. Whenever I hear this song I think of her.
Cecilia - when this song was popular there was a particularly mean nun - Sister Cecilia - at our school. We made up our own words for the song (can’t remember them), and when I hear it now it reminds of her.
Margarittaville: Reminds me of a friend of mine from High School. He was a HUGE Buffet fan, and we ALWAYS had to play it on the Jukebox when we shot pool.
Jason R Remy
“No amount of legislation can solve America’s problems.”
– Jimmy Carter (1980)
Okay, you’re going to think I’m making this up, but it really happened. The night before I left my first college, I was hanging out with two friends of mine. We were very close in one sense, but we also knew that the chances that we’d ever see each other again were slim to none. We were from completely different walks of life, and…well, anyway, it was a very poignant moment, and I was on the verge of spilling emotionally. During one hand of cards, Daphne started singing “Your Wildest Dreams” by the Moody Blues. I joined in and we sang a capella, beautifully, if I do say so myself. Dave just listened and smiled, and I think smoke was getting in his eyes. Or something. Anyway, that was it; a perfect set piece.
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night” was popular during my sophomore year in college, and while I was struggling with the "Should I or shouldn’t I question with my boyfriend/future hubby.
I hated the song then, but look back on it fondly now…
Although to spare you the boredom I won’t go into the details, I have to say that this song was the trigger for a chain of events that changed my life in a very significant way. In the summer following the release of this song (1986), and directly related to an old and very dear friend hearing it, I got divorced, re-united with a lady I had known from 15 years before, and lost her again, this time permanently. I cried everytime I head that song for 5 years. I still have to be careful.
Year of the Cat *, by Al Stewart. Takes me back to Berlin in December of 1989. I was with the air force at Templehof Air Base watching the Berlin Wall come down. It was a gray winter day that I met a German girl named Hanna, a native Berliner, who caught me up in the excitement of watching her city turn the clock back to 1961. She made it into a magical time for me as I saw her divided city come together. She had many plans and dreams that were now open to her, and I had to go back to the States in a few weeks. We had a great week together that I’ll never forget. I helped her tear out a piece of the wall in rememberance of her grandparents. She gave me a lead crystal tiger and some special memories of Berlin.
On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turned back time…*
stand by me- Ben E King…reminds me of Scott & Dave Carpenter, brothers, and dear friends who moved to Winnepeg 12&1/2 years ago, I was very close to them, and we used to sing that song to each other as we roamed the streets late at night.
Dont Dream It’s Over - crowded house, Scott & I danced to this at the prom, I cried as it played, they were due to leave in two weeks.
Funny, for someone I never got to sleep with, he haunts me more than any other lost love…maybe cause I lost him before we got to the hard part of ‘love’.
(sigh)
The entire “Brothers in Arms” album by Dire Straits reminds me of the night my friend and I and two Marines she was friends with drove around Okinawa. It was the only CD we had and I had a crush on one of the guys…nothing ever came of it, unfortunately or maybe it was fortunate…who knows!
“Love Will Bring you Back” Taylor Dane. Reminds me of my old boyfriend that I foolishly let go of ::sigh::
Any Rick Astley song: see #2 above
“No Parking on the Dance Floor” (can’t remember if this is the name-old disco song) Song that I remember my girlfriend and I dancing to when we went to New Orleans this spring for our “girls vacation” (left the hubbies behind!) and found this club on Bourbon Street with an excellent cover band (Bourbon Street Blues Club-no blues to be found but huge drinks and a hoppin’ dance scene with residents and out-of-towners alike: great mix!!). We just thought the song was so cheesy but fun to dance to, it stuck in my head!
I saw a standup comic once who played guitar; he started playing House of the Rising Sun, then started singing:
There is
a house
of pancakes.
After the laughter he said “You’ll never be able to listen to that song again without thinking of that.” He was right.
My car was in the shop and I had to resort to driving my father in laws Vanagon (with about 100k on it) into work. The top speed on it was about 65, which is way to slow for I-75. The song " Margeritaville" by Jimmy Buffett came on the crackly radio and it fit the perfect spring day, windows rolled down, lazy speed inwhich I drove ( in the far right lane) In the 5 years of a long commute, that is the only one that I remember smiling the entire drive in.
Songs are great at transporting me to a particular place and time. One example:
The Eagles - Those Shoes
I’m a young teen, locked in my bedroom, lounging in my beanbag chair. Ostensibly studying, but really reading a book I find far more interesting than what is on the assigned reading list. There is a bag of Hershey’s Kisses by my side. The stereo volume is as high as my parents will allow. The only things in existance are the imagery from the book mixed with the sounds of the music, the taste of chocolate, and the feeling of being perfectly at peace with the world…
There are many others, but this has to be my favorite. It’s been 7-8 years since I last heard Those Shoes, and the needle is busted on my turntable. Damn.
The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs. – E. Grebenik
I envy my parents, who had those great Glenn Miller and Harry James tunes to get sentimental over. What do I have? The BeeGees, and Donna Summer! Every time I hear early, classic disco (the Saturday Night Fever tunes, Love Is in the Air, almost any early Donna Summer song), I careen back to my disco days, in college. Yoiks!
Very romantic and exciting time in my life, but it occurs to me that when we’re all in nursing homes in 2040, the help will play Last Dance and watch us all try to frantically write our phone numbers on cocktail napkins.