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So previously on this blog I wrote an entry about the idea of specific songs invoking specific memories. It can be found here. So without further ado and as an exercise to take my mind off the impending election I present to you the second part of Postcards.
Postcard 1.
Imagine - John Lennon.
When I was in high school I usually hung out with the more artistically inclined of my class. I discovered the Beatles and John Lennon thinking I was the first to hear their music. Well anyway I was at the Kingston Mall with a very talented pianist and he began to play this song. I at the time was very involved in music and starting singing along. He played as I sat on the floor singing my heart out, my back to the door of the music shop. When we finished I turned around shocked at the applause of about 50 people that had gathered.
Postcard 2.
Fallin’ - Teenage Fanclub & De La Soul
Summer of 1997! This song brings me right back. I had moved in with my grandmother due to some poor descion making on my part. I was working in a coffee shop in Harvard Square and would take the Redline everyday through Boston, drowning out my own anxiety with a beat up cassette walk-man. This song was both an upbeat but also very hard on yourself type of song. “Ya played yourself” was the chorus and at that time in my life I had indeed done just that, played myself.
Postcard 3.
Change - Tracy Chapman
This is one of my newer Boston songs. These last four years have been me clawing my way up from my lowest. I stood one morning, one of those real chilly crisp mornings, in Downtown Crossing. This was before people were commuting to work. The sun was just rising and the wind was ripping through the streets causing discarded newspapers dance past me. I stood there in the middle of the four way section wind blowing in my hair as this song came on my ipod. I stood and stared up at all buildings surrounding me. This is my song for right now because I don’t know how to answer the question it asks.
Postcard 4
Girl Anachronism - The Dresden Dolls.
Every time I hear this it reminds me of a combination of several close friends of mine. Some it reminds me of how the used to be and some how they still are. Oddly it also makes me think of me (of course without the girl part) The erratic behavior I tend to exhibit. The ADD fueled goals that I fill never fulfill, the self destructive streak I have that threatens to burst through every couple years. The things that I do “accidentally on purpose”
Postcard 5
Andy, You’re a Star - the Killers
I listened to this album constantly when I came home from Colombia. It had just become popular and their music was everywhere in Boston when I went out. And god did I ever go out during that time. That streak of self destruction I was talking about before, yeah this was an album that was the soundtrack to that period of spiralling out. The music was this combo of pop, sadness, darkness, and adrenaline all mixed together. I would stumble home singing this song at the top of my lungs, waking up neighbors and pissing off most of Boston….
sorry
Postcard 6
Rabbit Run - Eminem
I first started listening to this song in New York but rediscovered it in Bogota. The rapid fire way the words came out, the dysfunction, the intensity to survive, this was the song in my head. I would listen to constantly like a mantra, searching for some sense of calm, some sense of stability. Even now when I get overwhelmed I put this on and get some sense of peace in a truly weird way
Postcard 7
Supersonic- Oasis
I am an unabashed early 90’s Brit-pop fan. I admit it. Blur, Oasis, Kenickie, Echobelly, etc.. I clearly remember where I was and what I was doing when I first heard this. During the summertime of my teens I was a camp counselor at a small day camp with minimal supervision from anyone close to an adult. I drove a beat up station wagon with fake wood panelling on the side. I was so proud on this tape deck I installed in the dashboard. When we were fixing up the camp before the season started we would blast this album from the car. Singing along. To this day when I’m in a good mood or getting ready to go out I sing this song ” I’m feeling supersonic, give me gin and tonic….”
Make me a mix-tape of your memories.
