Was going to post this in the Hi-Fi and AV forum, but I thought it'd be more fitting here.

It's kind of a pointless topic, but I just feel like moaning/reminiscing(ish).

Music, it's a weird thing, it can uplift us and drag us down, it shows us the way, and sometimes how to solve problems, it's also got another trick up its sleeve. It has the power to bring back memories of looooong ago. I've just had my iPod on shuffle today, just wanted to see where it would take me. And it took me back to to year 11, whilst on study leave, well, actually, before that, back to January 2006, I had had my jaw broken, and my friends had just started 'parkour', I couldn't even attempt it, thanks to the jaw, but I remember listening to certain songs, which I can't actually remember now.

Next up, 2007, I was up in Bristol with the 'parkour' lot from my town, filming in and around Bristol, the song in question? Through the Fire and Flames by Dragonforce. It's weird, if I had tried to purposely think of these memories, I may have got back little snippets of it. But upon hearing this song, it all flooded back, kinda emotional about it, seeing as I've lost contact with many of the people.

And then it comes to the summer of '08, this time, Frontlines by Pillar, round a mates flat, pissed up in the back garden, so many memories, so many good times, all lost now, people move away, people move on, it's sad. I suppose this is the soundtrack of our lives, if it were all to be piled into a CD, one song for each season of a year, spanning your life, I wonder what would come up? Or even a song for a year.

I wonder what song will be for the summer of '09? Hopefully something meaningful...

[/rant]

Why I'm posting this, I haven't a clue, meh....

So, what songs remind you of certain times of your life, which songs bring back the fondest memories? Discuss

It's not a rant dude - it's a good post!

I too have the same kind of thing, hearing a tune and being sent back to the sights, sounds, smells & emotions of previous times.

My biggies include:

Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach" is a real random one for me, but it hurtles me back countless hundreds of parties to when I was about 10 around a school friend's house for her birthday and I'm one of only three other quests; it was as uncomfortable as it was exciting.

The Four Top's "Reach Out I'll Be There" sends me back to car drives to the beack at Sea View on the East coast of The Isle Of Wight with my grand parents and sister in the school summer holidays when it was always being played on the radio and it would stick in my head throughout the day of rock pooling and messing about on the beach.

Basement Jaxx's "Red Alert" reminds me of the small plastic picnic table buckling dangerously under the weight of a 16 year old former self & my mate Sam as we danced manically on it at 11am steaming drunk at the end of a house party.

LTJ Bukem's "Demon's Theme" has me wearing my headphones travelling through the Swiss Alps on my way home from Venice at about 2am in the morning sat in a coach surrounded by my slumbering Sixth Form A-Level Art class mates. Good times.

Dillinja's "Cybotron" propels me hurtling into the squalid, hedonistic, self-destructive, euphoric decadence of the sticky heat of my first year at Kingston when i was in halls caning my way through what was to total thirteen grand in purely expendable sundries over the course of just one year.

Zero 7's "Simple Things" envelops me in the low dusk light of a sweltering summer's day in Kingston approaching the start of my second year of architecture, (2002) wrestling the early inner angst of unrequited love.

Tenor Saw's "Ring The Alarm" throws me whooping and hollering into the drunken throng of a house party some years back when at 8am we started distributing burgers to the commuters past our front garden in East Central London!

...and Andy Williams singing "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" & Luther Vandross' "Never Too Much" make me smile every time I hear them - reading or writing their titles alone sees me grining oddly as they both remind me of so many good times I can't even begin to pinpoint one.


But what I like most about the whole music & memory association is that it never stops - each time we listen to music we are associating it to that moment - only some moments stand out more than others.... for example Issac Hayes' rendition of "Walk On By" launches me into the soaring dusky air of late summer BBQ nights in Farringdon - and I have (and exploit) the oppurtunity to replenish and relive the "memory" still - of late it's been getting some heavy air play - and I will never tire of blasting it out to the evening air.

Excellent thread! I'll probably post a few times as I remember things. I may well Lazurus it out of page 101 in a few months

One song that comes to mind was the exact defining moment I fell in love with the first girl I properly snogged.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Deep in the Woods.

It was 1988 and I was still a fresher. Cave was her favourite artist, and we were curled up on her bed listening to her tapes on a Sony Walkman with tiny tinny speakers. We pretty much went through the entire anthology from early "Boys Next Door". This track had one of her favourite lyrics:

Love is for fools and all fools are lovers
It's raining on my house and none of the others
Love is for fools and God knows I'm still one

These days it also reminds me of Jess; my recently deceased cat. That's because she died in my arms and I kissed her little head before I closed her eyes. I buried her in the garden. When I close my eyes I can totally see:

Worms make their cruel design
Saying D-I-E into her skin
Saying DEAD into belly and DEATH into shoulder
Well last night she kissed me but then DEATH was upon her.

I've never been spooked by graves before, but I miss the cat far more than any of my dead friends or family.

Prior to my A-levels, I didn't dislike music, but I didn't listen to it...

My second year of A-levels was definitely The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations", "God only knows" and "The Little Girl I Once Knew" all spring to mind instantly as being low points that year. "Summer of '69" has amazing memories though, driving across Salisbury plain singing it at the tops of our voices (me and friends) requesting it in pubs when drunk and (apparently) falling over while playing air-guitar and singing at the top of my voice

My first year of uni, Ella Fitzgerald's "The lady is the Tramp", "What is this thing called Love" and "I could write a book" reminds me of coursework at first, and then laying outside looking at the stars swigging rum from a hip flask...Nothing really stands out as being particularly happy this year.

"99 Luftballoons" specifically reminds of walking up the hill in Aber to uni in my second year. Playing "Amerika" by Rammstein really loud when my house mates got to me...

I can't think of anything for this year...Nothing has particularly stood out...I've been listening to a lot of Jethro Tull recently...Maybe when I look back I'l remember that...

I can't remember what it is, but one song reminds me of playing a Star Wars game with my brother in the middle of summer, it reminds of a moment when I accidently jumped off a ledge...Not sure why that sticks out, but I always remember it when I hear it...It was by Aerosmith IIRC

Walk This Way?

Songs don't remind me of much I have to say - I can usually remember the details AND what the song was that was playing at the time anyway

Been thinking about this since I last posted, I've hundreds - and they're not just the choons I remember being played at the time, all of them send me back:

Leviticus "The Burial" actually puts the taste of the entire 1kg bar of Cadbury's I woofed down in a mammoth lock-myself-in-my-room-with-my-first-hifi-listening session when I was 15.

Cypress Hill's "Lock Down" (and in recent years now when I listen to Sly Johnson's "Is it Because I'm Black?" original more often) reminds me of the first time I ever got stoned as an 8ft Rock Python snaked around my mate Nick's small bedroom on his birthday.

Rebel MC's "Wardance" reminds me of my first experience of cocaine as I danced around my best mate/dealer's bedroom in the last year of university.

Art Of Noise's "Moments In Love" & Orbital's "Belfast" are tunes I will always associate with blissed out morning-afters sitting in gardens with the last men standing surrounded by the carnage of the night before.

Johann Strauss' "Blue Danube" reminds me of waltzing with my Gran at an open air classical concert when I was about 19; that's a a real gem of a memory.

Burial's "Near Dark" resumes the super-loved-up softness and contemplative completeness of my first play with Ketamine.

Petula Clark's "Downtown" reminds me of hearing it through my grandparent's (still) awesome 70's stereo as we basked in the summer sun of their beautiful garden.

The Soul General's "Granma's Funky Popcorn" reminds me of when I was 17-18 going to funk nights all over Milton Keynes with my boys, dancing our arses off till the lights came home.

The Clash's "Rock the Casbah" reminds me of a particularly messy afternoon on a exceptionally hot day in a Stony Stratford curry house hoofing down an all-you-can-eat buffet before tearing it up in the park and hotboxing "The Beast" (my mate Pete's Metro)

Herbie Hancock's "Stars In Their Eyes" is a standout tune from my glorious two years of Art A-Level - by year 13 I'd near stopped going to school altogether - I never went to my Physics or Maths classes - but I could always be found in the studio listening to albums and painting - that was a real time of music discovery - D'Angelo's "Voodoo", Morcheeba's "Big Calm", Massive Attack's "Blue Lines", Liam Howlett's "Dirt Chamber Sessions", Lenny Kravitz's "5" & LTJ Bukem's "Earth" series of compilations all remind me of the same.

Goldfrapp's "Lovely Head" reminds me of the countless hours working alone & left to think about my floundering degree, broken heart & future in the voluminous first bar of Ocean (Kingston) every night before the club opened... it sends shivers right through me still.

David Holme's "Gone" projects me back onto the astral plane I was gliding over when on my first whole-body Mushroom trip in Amsterdam - I'm unsure if it's an "all-good" memory as the song, whenever I hear it, stops me dead in my tracks still - I'm barely able to function when I hear it.

Tom Novy's "I Don't Want Nobody Else But You" reminds me (embarrasingly) of the awesome first 2 years of living in London when I worked in a Wetherspoons-turned-Lloyds with my (still now) best mates. Messy good times.

Dillinja's "The Angels Fell" reminds me of the jaw-dropping moment in 1996 when I knew Drum & Bass was to shape my life in the years to come.





NB: For the record I'm not advocating drug use - but I for the best part of the last decade my life has featured both married in harmony - and whatever people may think, I associate them with some of my best, most savoured of times.

Foo Fighters - The Pretender was being played over the tannoy system when I was at Topcliffe, doing my first ever race on the 450. I happened to win it.

Some DJ Sh*t was playing the first time I ever got stoned. Was fun. Can't remember the song, but it was one of those boom-boom-chickaweewboom blablabla ones that Chavs listen to. House party ftw!

Strangely, Tained Love (the original one) *forgot band name* was playing when I rebuilt my first engine. Dad likes to listen to Ridings FM (local pre-90s station) in the garage.

Finally, and this may sound VERY weird, The Cod4 song when you are first introduced to the USMC part (the bit with guitars) was my ringtone for a bit, and when we were being broken into a few months back, just as I was running down the stairs to go see what'd happened, the phone rang. Was a very fitting song.

Softcell

Hmm, tricky.

Crowded House - Weather With You reminds me of my first year school trip to Holland. A week on a barge going round all the canals in glorious sunshine and one massive thunderstorm. Magic.

James - Sit Down takes me back to many a drunken night in the students union. In the end the bouncers kept trying to stop people from sitting on the floor due to all the broken glass. Most folk were too drunk to notice or care.

Pretty much and scratchy Beatles song (on cassette) takes me back to long car journey with the parents when I was a kid.

Soul Asylum - Runaway Train doesn't take me back to any specific time that I can recall but it always makes me stop and listen. A fantastic song.

Yeah, I'm aware of the thread revival. But meh

Seeing as Summer '09 is effectively over, there's only two songs that have meant anything to me.

Daniel Merriweather - Red. This song has probably the most complex meaning behind it, but to keep it simple, the cause would make Trisha confused(er). All panned out in the end. It just reminds me how bloody lucky I am now.

And Nneka - Heartbeat (Remix - Chase and Status). This song? Well, it was what I practically listened to all summer. Over and over again, when I listen to it now, all the memories come flooding back.

Bloody great eh?

Chase and status are genius.

I can't think of any songs that remind me of a moment right now, but there definitely are loads. I just can't think of them until they're playing and I'm thinking of the moment.

There is a song which makes me think of my ex-girlfriend immediately as soon as I hear it, but I can't remember what it is right now!

There are so many, although recently I hardly ever listen to music, so most of them are memories from the 70s and 80s.

Tomita
Any of his work. My dad was a big fan of his music, so listening to that today reminds me of my childhood and him.

Spyro Gyro - Morning Dance
Again, 70s childhood days, before my parents split up. We often used to listen to that, sometimes on Sundays when .

Queen - A Kind of Magic
Wembley Stadium, my first ever concert. The warm-up acts were a little know Aussie group, INXS, then the Alarm and finally Status Quo, who almost got a bigger reception than Queen - and had to pause for 5 minutes after the first song, because the crowd were yelling "turn it up", because the warm-up acts were playing at a much lower volume...

Blues Brothers - Raw Hide
A Unysis BTOS training course in Milton Keynes, it was the first ever showing on public television and I think the whole campus watched it, apart from one old bloke, who complained about people shouting Rawhide all evening!

The Blues Brothers Band - Everybody needs somebody
Watching them play live in Brighton.

[b]Texas - The Hush (complete album)/b]
The album was playing in the background on constnat repeat when I lost my virginity.

Michael Jackson - Dangerous Album - Very randomly, playing Theme Park.
Jamiroquai - Deeper Underground - Also very randomly, playing Dungeon Keeper. Actually this is a bit more fitting >.<
Pendulum - Anything really - First year of uni.

Genres mostly remind me of different points in time, probably due to my changing musical tastes.

Nu Metal (Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Creed) Year 8.
Pop-Punk (Sum 41, New Found Glory, Blink 182, NOFX) Years 9-10.
Heavier Stuff (Avenged Sevenfold, Rammstein, Slipknot, Korn, Atreyu) Years 11 - L6th.
Emo/Screamo (Jimmy Eat World, Taking Back Sunday, Senses Fail, Underoath)
Drum n Bass (Pendulum, Chase and Status, Andy C, Subfocus) Uni year 1 - present.
Opera - Uni year 2 - present.

Interesting idea...

The Bangles - Eternal Flame (was always on the radio at the time)- most amazing holiday ever, Canada, 1989.

Pearl Jam - Vs (the whole album, but probably "Elderly woman.." most of all)- Corfu, mid 90's.

Shanks & Bigfoot - Sweet like chocolate (was played repeatedly by the rep's)- Majorca, late 90's

Evanesence - Going under - Spain (first heard it on the N-340 heading towards Gibraltar, was awesome), 2003

Marillion - The release - coming home from Tenerife (a sad time!) - 2007

I only seem to remember the times where I'm out of the country...how odd...