I know they say that smell is the strongest sense tied to memory, but I think music must be at least as powerful.
Tonight I'm washing dishes, listening to "Over the Rhine," a band a friend introduced me to last fall. I must have listened to their album over and over again most of last November. So now tonight, I close my eyes and can see the snow piling up in the fields outside of Klaipeda, the fields I used to be able to see out the window from my fourth floor apartment. I can hear my own voice echoing off the tiny kitchen walls in my old place, practicing to sing at the mid-semester talent show.... the sensation of time having stopped is palpable.
Do any of you, dear readers, have songs or albums that conjure a specific memory or era of your life? Melancholy or otherwise. :)
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7 years ago
5 comments:
Oh my gosh! I am just having fun sitting in the lab and listening to your music! It is soooooo good!
any song by Counting Crows reminds me of being separated from Dave the year I taught in Prague while he was in Budapest...talk about melancholy!
John Mayer reminds me of my year in Hungary...
great discussion!
Whenever I listen to a Rich Mullins album, I am reminded of a summer in HS when I was struggling with God, and took a long walk down our dusty dirt road, past green meadows and waving weeds. I listened to my new tape, A Liturgy, A Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band, and suddenly felt "saved", or something like it.
And Toto always reminds me of my husband!
Amanda
I love that story about your experience of walking down the dusty road, listening to Rich Mullins and feeling saved. :) I have a lot of songs like that, that make me feel like I've turned a corner or seen the world in a new way. It's amazing to me what a sense of well-being I get from U2s "Where the Streets Have No Name!" I listened to it on Easter morning, walking to church, and felt like that's probably what we'll hear as we all enter heaven. :)
Coldplay's The Scientist always takes me back to my first week home after Study Abroad. Broken heart, culture shock...I had a few good tears over that song.
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