Music and Recall

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If you're cursed with nostalgia and sentimentality like I am (and I only jokingly refer to it as a curse), you may have found that there are two things that can immediately take you back to a time and place long gone. At least, for me, there are two things that easily trigger that: scents and music. I'll talk about the latter here.

Not every song does it. But some are just so engrained in a memory that the reaction is immediate: there I am again, the feeling of a time and place returns, I'm a certain age again, reliving a time long gone. And it's often bittersweet -- maybe it's just me, but a lot of those sorts of memories are a mix of happiness (for the experience at the time) and sadness (for the fact that it's over, only to be relived as a memory -- "you can't go home again", they say). There's something that Alex Van Halen once said, that I was trying to find the source for as I wrote this, about there being comfort in the past because it never changes.

And it has to be a song that hasn't been a perennial -- if I've listened to something a lot over time, it's unlikely to be associated with a particular time and place, because it's been present at a lot of times and places.

Sometimes I dwell too much on the past. Definitely a lot more as I've gotten older. I think it goes back to what Alex said. When things are hectic, busy, and crazy, there's a little peace in those memories. But it's also because I've gotten more reflective. I've gotten to the point where the losses have added up. There's more to remember. Friends who are now only memories, and places I can't visit because they're no longer there.

What songs would be on the soundtrack to your life? A playlist of music that triggers those memories?

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