Monday, June 23, 2008

SONGS, SONGS, MUSIC and SONGS

I am sure I am not the only one who does this, or this happens to, you hear a song and immediately it brings a memory or mood to mind. These can be broad or specific, people or places, good or bad. There are songs that remind me of my childhood like "What a wonderful world" by Louis Armstrong, or more specific my favorite song when I was 5 and we lived in Texas "Africa" by Toto. I still think that song is great. Some songs make me think of specific people. Even more so now two years after her death "You are my sunshine" makes me think of my grandma. I try to sing it to my son but can't always make it through with out starting to cry. So I was just thinking about how my life really could be set to music. I could easily write a soundtrack for each point of my life. Even my babyhood would be set to music as I still sing the same lullabyes to my son that my parents sang to me, Dad's choice "B a bae, b e bee" and Mom's "Leaving on a jetplane". My mother claims she didn't know any lullabyes and therefor sung me the only thing she knew the words too. One of my most favorite and few songs I can sing with out accompaniement to this day. There are songs that remind me of difficult times dealing with my past like Tori Amos's "Precious Things". There are songs that expressed exactly how I was feeling in my life, like after two years of trying and failing and failing and almost losing hope and then the joy of having my son, "A New Day" Celione Dion. But even more so now I find myself actually picking songs to suite the person, like theme songs. I took a quiz online once that told me my theme song is "Dancing Queen" by ABBA, a song I absolutely love but I think more fitting in my current life would be "I'm a woman" which if you don't know from Broadway you really should listen to as every wife, mother, hybrid mom can relate! Talk about multitasking! Speaking of children my son has a theme song in my head now whenever he is on the move, which is just about every waking second, it's the chorus of the 80's song "Break my stride":

"Ain't nothing gonna break my stride
Nobody's gonna slow me down
Oh no, I've got to keep on moving
Ain't nothing gonna break my stride
I'm running and I won't touch ground
Oh no, I've got to keep on moving"

It's so fitting as he is in constant motion and I can barely keep up. However I have a counter song, Simon and Garfunkel's "59th Street Bridge Song":

"Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feeling groovy
Ba da da da da da da, feeling groovy"

If it really came down to having to pick my life soundtrack by just one artist though that would have to be Sarah Mclachlan hands down. If I didn't know better I would swear she could read my mind and has been spying on my life. She is brillant and her music is beautiful. I have told my husband I would only leave him for two people, Sarah McLachlan and Jack Johnson! But only in pure innocence and fun and a slightly stalking fashion, I just want to follow them on tour and see every concert and then I would return to my fabulous husband as soon as the tour was over! The Beatles would be on that list too if it weren't for the sad facts that 1) they formed, conquered and broke up before I was even born and 2) only half of them are still living.
So, I am just wondering is all this mood music, memory music and theme songs make me odd? Am I the only person out there that does this? Honestly I probably have a song, or album in some cases, for most of my friends, places I have lived, jobs and definetly every major event in my life. So just for my sanity, does or can anyone else set their life to music too?

For those of you wondering, no my love of music and songs and such unfortunately doesn't transfer into any musical talent. However I would probably be a pretty good contestant on "Don't forget the lyrics" that's if anyone could stand to listen to me! And just for the record today was definitely a "Monday, Monday" by the Mamas and the Papas, haha!

2 comments:

amanda weichers said...

I totally know what you mean...when ever I hear a boys 2 men song I think of 6th grade school dances (every dance featured one of their songs), forever young-8th grade graduation,

Yea one time long ago I was listening to casey casem's top 40 count down and they were talking about songs triggering memories...it is kind of crazy.

This website talks about movie clips and alzheimer's patients...kind of interesting

Anonymous said...

I cam relate to the theme song I think we all have them for different moods and things going on in our lives. For some reason my singing sounds better in my head and when it is just my husband and I around.