It’s funny how certain music brings back certain memories, as though they were yesterday even many years later. The vice versa applies as well, a memory can bring a song into my head.
I was looking through the Carihi Grad Facebook page a couple days ago and came across a picture of John Palmer. Now John is a professional musician and I am a geek, but seeing his pic, even after all these years, and I could hear the song ‘5 Foot 2’. It made me laugh as it was my first ever duet on the trombone, about grade 6 or 7, and I was awful. But John carried me in that duet. I am not sure if he still plays the trombone, but that isn’t as important as the memory.
My association with music has been love – hate for most of my life. I was listening to James Taylor’s ‘Fire and Rain’ when I found out one of my all-time favourite people had been killed in a car accident. For years I couldn’t bear to hear the song, now it brings a kind of smile to my lips, a memory smile making me cherish the song even more.
Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares to You’ was very popular when my first marriage ended abruptly. Love the song, love Sinead O’Connor’s voice, but when I heard this morning that she had died, the song and a flood of memories came back all at once. I was surprised at how much was stored up over the years.
But music brings back good memories as well. ‘The Hippopotamus Song’ / aka Telus commercial reminds me of when Sam was a baby and ‘Phenomena’ (think ‘The Muppets’) makes me laugh thinking of the goofy days in Victoria, making homemade Kahlua and other family ‘medicines’.
Maybe for others music is just something in the background, for me it is a big part of my life, thankfully so!
And now the angels have have yet another heavenly voice to add to their choir.
Suaimhneas síoraí Sinead!