There are memories attached to some of the songs I listen to. "Head Over Feet" by Alanis Morissette, for instance — that brings me back to fall of 1996, returning to college, living in a small apartment in Pittsburgh, PA. I would go to almost all of my classes that semester and get on Dean's List (look here for where in my story this goes); but I also recall scrounging whatever money I had on buying dime bags of marijuana, too. Still, it was more good than bad, that time. That song is of an up time within my past.
"Maria Maria" by Santana with Wyclef Jean: now this is more recent. This reminds me of getting up in the apartment I had had just these past years, turning on the TV to VH1, smoking my first cigarette of the morning, putting on my clothes. I miss that apartment, though the roaches that were ever present in that place — I don't miss them. I haven't lived there since the onset of my second episode. I've also quit smoking since then. I remember being happy a lot of the time there, though. Alone with my dreams, designing web sites and researching artificial intelligence in my spare time....
There are others. But there is this whole part of my life that listening to songs I first heard in that time period doesn't bring back any memories. It's all hazy, those years I was heavily into drugs — the first three years of college (here, here, and here). I have random flashes of what went on back then, but I think I've lost a lot of it. It's sad. But you know, there are sadder things, and I'd rather not linger. I wonder instead what songs will (in the future) bring back memories of now?
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1:21pm monday, 6th may
Impossible to predict. It would be nice if it was a great piece of music with profound lyrics but I find my memeory isn't that discriminatory. Sometimes it only takes a fragment of a trite pop song to send me spinning through the reels of time.
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