Such is the emotional power of music that certain songs remain etched in the memory and remind you of places and people, some you remember fondly, some you may try to forget. Whenever I hear The Four Tops classic number 'Reach Out I'll be There' for example, I'm instantly transported back to Cumbernauld, just outside Glasgow in the late 1960s. As a child in my formative years, for me, this song is forever linked with the new town. To this day when I hear the song I close my eyes and for a couple of minutes I'm back in simpler times when there were no personal computers, no internet, no mobile phones, I would be out playing with my pals - and my mother and father would be in the house keeping a beady eye on me.
Similarly, years later when I lived in Aberdeen there were a couple of songs that summed up my less than happy time in the Granite City. The Proclaimers burst on to the scene in the late 1980s and penned a few memorable ditties, none more so than 'I'm on My Way' (from misery to happiness today) This was a song I never tired of hearing - for obvious reasons - when I left Aberdeen for Edinburgh nearly twenty years ago. But I heard the other song a a few days ago for the first time in years - Morrissey's Every Day is Like Sunday. I had forgotten what a wonderful song this is and it's hard to believe it's twenty-one years since he wrote it. Living in misery in Aberdeen at the time, the lyrics hit a resonance with me which few other songs do:
Trudging slowly over wet sand
Back to the bench where your clothes were stolen
This is the coastal town that they forgot to close down
Armageddon - come Armageddon! Come Armageddon! Come!
Everyday is like Sunday
Everyday is silent and grey
Hide on the promenade scratch out a postcard
How I dearly wish I was not here
In the seaside town...that they forgot to bomb Come! Come! Come - nuclear bomb!
Morrissey was,of course, the lead singer with The Smiths back in the early 1980s before he embarked on a solo career. The Smiths were one of the best bands around in a decade which taste forgot and blandness and greed took over. You may try to imagine how wonderful it felt hearing that song - living, as I did, in the coastal town they forgot to close down...
4 comments:
Hmmm, I know what you mean about memories from music. I often here Norman Wisdom singing, 'Don't laugh at me, cos I'm a fool.'
Many songs are forever bound to distant memories like that for me. One of the earliest is of hearing Petula Clark's "Downtown" on the radio in the car as we followed my dad to another pipelining job. This was another very well written piece, my friend.
Phil Collins No Jacket Required (fabulous album), is one of those albums that takes me back to teenage years, teenage love and Aberdeenshire (not love for Aberdeenshire!).
You are talking my language Mike.
I would be lost with music.
I have many songs that bring back happy and sad memories...artists like Cat Stevens, Jackson Browne and Stevie Nicks to name a few. They take me back in time.....thanks for the memories!
Great post mate!
Cheers
Peggy
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