Musical Memories

Music. It's supposed to soothe the beast. It punctuates special moments in our lives, both sad and elated. It can even help bring back the person from the locked shell Alzheimer's converts our bodies into. As far as I know, humans are the only species that creates specific melodies to be repeated over and over.

Yesterday I read a blog post by fellow blogger, Angela Stratta (capuccinoandbrioche.blogspot.com). She talks about the music in her life, from her childhood on up. She remembers songs from her childhood through to her grandchildren's childhoods. She's lucky. I don't really remember music from my childhood. I was very much locked into the Spanish cocoon my parents had created in our home, and my parents didn't know songs, or at least, none to sing to me. And, rather than the pop music everyone else was listening to in Boston at that time, I remember listening to Ana Kiro, Xoan Rubio, Las Grecas, Fórmula V, Peret, ABBA, or Camilo Sesto. This was thanks to vinyl records my parents had bought in Spain while we were here on vacation in the summer of 1974. Either the airlines handled baggage with much more care then, or we were particularly lucky on that flight back. Other than that, my parents didn't really turn on the radio to listen to music, though I remember my mother listening to what seemed to be a soap opera before I was old enough to go to school. Though I must be mistaken, because I don't think there was a radio channel in Spanish back then, and my mother certainly didn't understand English.

My musical interest jump starts in my early teens, way back in the 80's. A friend had me listen to Joan Jett and I was hooked; "put another dime in the jukebox, baby." I did. My taste became eclectic. I liked to listen to a radio station that had "oldies but goodies." Back then, the oldies were tunes from the beginnings of rock n' roll, times far off in the past. I liked Elvis, got hooked on the Beatles, swayed to The Byrds and sang along with Simon and Garfunkel. I also fell in love with tunes that were new back then, like Michael Jackson and the terror in Thriller, with Vincent Price's eerie laugh. Or the strange twists and turns in Prince's When Doves Cry. Bruce Springsteen became the voice of everyone's hometown, Berlin the voice of romantic Tom Cruise, the jet pilot that took every girl's breath away. Then there were others that spoke of historical unrest, like U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday. I belonged to the night along with Pat Benatar, and to the world with USA for Africa. Bon Jovi showed me not to be a Runaway, and Whitesnake taught me to start over with Here We Go Again. Many others from my teenage years have remained with me. The Pretenders, REO Speedwagon, Bryan Adams, Fleetwood Mac, The Bangles, AC/DC, Asia, Foreigner, Billy Idol, and so many others.

After I moved here in the 90's I listened to the radio for a few years, went out and danced to great songs from a few years earlier, and new songs that still had rhythm, punch, and melodic lyrics. Old bands continued with new songs, like U2, and I discovered new bands, some Spanish, like Celtas Cortos or Amistades Peligrosas, Revolver, Seguridad Social, or El Último de la Fila. The eternal British and American bands and singers were ominpresent, though, like Haddaway, The Cranberries, Michael Bolton, or Britney Spears. Then there were foreign singers that expanded their fame here singing in Spanish, like the Italians Eros Ramazotti or Laura Pausini; and the Frenchman Georgie Dann. Another Frenchman, Patrick Bruel, had a beautiful song En la Plaza de los Héroes, about a reunion of friends ten years later. 

As the years went on, I stopped listening to the radio as much. I preferred silence. I ended up listening to the radio in the car. But the newer music didn't appeal except for a few songs here and there. I wound up listening to another oldies channel. But now, the oldies were from my teenage years, not some far away point in prehistoric time. 

My daughter is a strange child. While she liked some of the same songs her friends liked, she preferred rock and heavy metal. She fell in love with AC/DC, and embraced strong, loud music. She ended up liking most of our favorite music from our own teenage years. She went to the AC/DC concert in Madrid two years ago, and took me with her. She went to see Alice Cooper in Santiago with her father, and the Spanish Loquillo. She also went with us to see Héroes del Silencio and gave me the present of seeing Joan Baez. Which does not go to say we always see eye to eye on all types of music. Sometimes she puts on songs on her laptop that make me blink in disbelief. Some are pure noise, others sound like a cat wailing in the night. Still, someday when she hears the long-forgotten accords of a song, tears will probably hit her eyes when it reminds her of when she first heard it. It's happened to me. 

It's funny. Sometimes I suddenly hear a song I had forgotten about. Instantly, I am at the moment in my life when that song was all around me. If I hear Easy Lover by Phil Collins, I am immediately transported to an uncomfortable May night, difficulty breathing, slight fever, impossibility to sleep with that particular song repeating itself in my head without pity on me, until I finally fall asleep some time after one in the morning. Only to get up at six the next morning to go to school, fever broken and breathing easier. Madonna's La Isla Bonita transports me to Bermuda, where the song was being played everywhere on our senior trip, when most of us were let loose by our parents for the first time in our lives. The state we left the waiting area at the gate where we boarded the airplane at Logan Airport attested to that fact. So did the presence of Massachusetts State troopers. We were eager to get a thousand miles away from parents, and started the party early. And my first serious crush will always come to mind when I hear Timmy T and One More Try. 

Music is our memory, and our memory is made by music.