If I'm in the right state of mind, and even sometimes if I'm not, music will quickly travel me back in time. Right now, a lit candle, low lights, being solitude after midnight, and the upcoming holidays set the mood so well it's impossible not to get smacked in the face with nostalgia. Nostalgia seems to fuel my writing more than anything, both songwriting and otherwise, so here I am again for the second time within a few hours.
One of my strangest and earliest memories involving music association dates back to when I was about 9 or 10. I was really into R.L. Stine's "Fear Street" novels at the time (because my older sister was), and one weekend night I was up reading very late. At one of the most terrifying parts of the story I suddenly became aware of the song that was coming from my sister's room, muffled through the wall. To this day, "Don't Speak" by No Doubt can still give me chills and bring me back to the feeling of that moment in the novel.
And of course, like any one who ever reads this could have guessed, countless songs bring me back to various relationships, but of course more than anyone the memories lie with my first boyfriend Shawn. There are at least 100 I'm sure. The entire Coldplay album Parachutes, for example; not only did he give me the cd as a present for our one Christmas together, but I listened to it as I fell asleep for several weeks. As the time passes, that feeling of being so hopelessly in love gets harder and harder to recall, but Coldplay does a great part in making time travel to 2003 possible.
The three songs I have by Elizabeth and the Catapult scream Winter 2006. I saw them a few weeks after my arrival at Berklee and was quickly hooked. My brand new roommate at the time and I bonded over our mutual love for the amazing music and seemed to listen to it nonstop. It was a wonderful (though sometimes heartbreaking) time of transition. Sometimes when I think back to last winter I feel like it was just the three of us: me, Gen, and the music of Elizabeth Ziman.
It's kind of surprising to me that I can't think of more very specific examples, of particular moments in my life. I guess after a while, songs just become pieces that shuffle through your music player without so much as a second thought most of the time. You may tap your foot or sing along, but slowly and surely most music memories fade just as the real ones do. But if you light a candle and forget everything happening in your present life, you just might travel through time.