Songs and Memories

Music is a powerful thing. A single tune can evoke powerful memories, instantly transporting you back to a different time and place, a line of a song can remind you of all those emotions you felt on one day so many years ago.

Sally at Who’s The Mummy tagged me for the songs and memories meme. The meme rules are: “Name a song that reminds you of something, that has a story for you. Not necessarily your favourite song or a even a song that you love, but a song that instantly takes you back to that time and place.”

There are songs that take me back to places I’d rather not revisit. Atomic Kitten’s Whole Again and Hear’say’s Pure & Simple leave me shivering, wet, cold and sick in the rain because they were the songs I remember playing on the radio. There are songs that transport me to worlds that aren’t real. I read Lord of the Rings and many other fantasy novels whilst listening to Mike Oldfield‘s Ommadawn on repeat and instead of taking me to 1850s New Zealand, Michael Nyman’s My Big Secret pulls me into the world I create as I’m writing.

It’s April 2001 and I’m sitting at the kitchen table at the farm in Scotland.  It’s freezing even though we’ve almost reached summer.  There’s no heating in the house and the weather outside is still vile.  It’s either here by the heat of the rayburn or in the living room by the fire.  I’m playing solitaire with an ageing pack of cards, their corners yellow and battered.  It’s become an obsession, the perfect time killer.  My grandparents and uncle are in the living room, the dog is sprawling over the floor so it’s the kitchen for me.  It quieter here anyway, I don’t fell I have to make conversation and act as if I’m ok.

You see, it’s been just over three weeks.  It’s the last week of the Easter holidays; they’re mid-April this year.  I’ve come up here to escape, to hide.  My bus ticket is open, three months to return home.  I have no idea when I’ll go back but I’d like to stay here as long as possible.  I don’t have the energy to go back, to try and resume the life I had.  I have no inclination to return to college,  to pull things together and get through my A-levels.  In the heat of the moment, sitting in that hospital bed, I’d wanted to quit work.  The parents had convinced me otherwise but I’m not sure I want to go back there either.  There are too many people there who cared that day.

I saw Dido in concert only last week.  The mother didn’t want me to go.  I think she wanted to keep me close, within sight.  I don’t know what she worries about.  I’m medicated; I won’t try it again.  In the end she relented; Han promised to make sure I was ok.  I’m hooked on the album.  I loved it before but the lyrics of so many of the songs resonate much stronger than they did before.  So No Angel spins on repeat in my lime green discman as I deal out the cards, the volume low so I can hear the snap as they hit the table when I flip and land them.

There’s more to tell of this story and there are more songs to hear.  It all fits neatly together in one small package.  Maybe I’ll bring it out to see here another day.

Now, in the hope that you’ve not already done it, I tag Pippa, Milo, Heather and Claire.