Create Challenge - Where Have I Heard That Song Before
Created | Updated Aug 25, 2013
All this talk about 'Soundtrack of Your Life' has got me thinking…
Where Have I Heard That Song Before?
Much is made on h2g2 of the problem of 'the infernal internal jukebox'. Most people have one, these days – a sort of mind's-ear psychic radio that plays a selection of favourites and not-so-favourites, often over and over. Some of us appear to be afflicted more than others by the earworm phenomenon. You know, where that song gets 'stuck' in your head and won't go away? People have even threatened one another with bodily harm for 'sticking' them with that terrible disco hit or TV show theme song. In my case, I usually apply the 'think about a frog remedy'.
You know that trick, don't you? When some wisenheimer says, 'Don't think about a frog,' and then laughs like a hyena, I just think about an elephant instead. It works. Pick your alternate topic, image, or – in this case – earworm. Now, personally, I like Celine Dion's version of the theme from Titanic, but if I didn't, I'd just switch channels to something raucous, say Black 47's rendition of Phil Ochs' 'I Ain't Marchin' Anymore'. Nici o problema.
What bothers me, though, is a more Proustian dilemma: certain songs bring back strong sensory images of the first time I heard them. Or a significant time. Whatever the song meant to the composer or the singer, it has become inextricably bound up in my nervous system with a time, a place, and an experience. Here are a few examples.
Fire and Rain
It was August, 1970, about six pm on a Sunday. I'd just landed on campus for Freshman Orientation, three days of preflight training for university. Everything was new and exciting. I dumped my bags in my temporary dorm room and went out to find some friends from high school, who were chattering away. They'd already read the schedule and found out that the cafeteria wasn't going to be open until breakfast. They suggested McDonald's. I was young, hungry, and not picky, so I went along.
The fast-food place was only a couple of blocks from the dormitories, but just then, the heavens opened up, and by the time we ran inside, laughing, we were soaked. Nobody seemed to care. We grabbed burgers and fries and found a table by the window to watch the action on Forbes Avenue. It was full of hippies and other interesting beings – as I said, it was 1970. I sat there, drinking it in, ,thinking, 'I'm here. Wherever here is.'
It was at that moment that I heard James Taylor singing 'Fire and Rain' for the very first time. It was so beautiful it made me ache. Thank you, McDonald's, for a decent soundtrack on that rainy evening.
Freckles
It was 1975. August again. I had crashed on the sofa of my friend Roland's living room, because we wanted to get an early start for the North Sea. To Roland, 'early' meant about six am. I woke up to find him gone to the corner bakery for fresh Brötchen, so I figured I'd better get up. While I was cleaning up, I heard the radio in the flat playing that deathless German beach hit, 'Sommersprossen'. It's about this girl with freckles, you see…
I laughed. The reason Roland and I were headed for the North Sea was – you guessed it – a girl with freckles. Rather fetching ones, in fact. She and Roland had recently become an item in the neighbourhood. This was not the problem, because they made a cute couple. The problem was that Karin, an office worker, had booked her package holiday months ago. Before Roland. Now there she was, on a beach somewhere in the Balearics, enjoying herself, but missing her bf.
We teased her that the only way she was going to get a tan was if her freckles met in the middle. Hence the applicability of the song.
Now, Roland had been generous about his bf's holiday – she deserved it, after all – but he'd been moping all week, so a couple of us decided to take him out of himself by proposing excursions. He had a shiny new driving licence, and an equally shiny VW Käfer, and we chipped in with gas money and ideas. The North Sea was fun, especially when I had to serve as Dutch interpreter. The phosphorescence of the sea at twilight may be old hat to you Europeans, but it was magic to me. All that comes to mind whenever that song turns up in the mental rotation.
Glykeria
Anything by Glykeria. Glykeria's a very cool vocalist from Greece. Whenever I hear her, though, I am mentally back on a badly bouncing bus, somewhere between Thessaloniki and Kavala. More precisely, we're coming up on the statue of Philip of Macedon's lion. It's hot, and the sun reflects blindingly off the whitewashed houses. The bus driver is responsible for the music – he's got a boom box on the dash, and he likes to share. It passes the time.
Whenever I start down that road with the bus driver, my mind wanders on to Kavala. There, Elektra and I catch the bus that goes down the Drama road. No, it's not called that because of Greek behaviour during fender-benders. The road goes to Drama, pronounced 'Thrama', but we never get there. See, we get off at Philippi. The shopping's not too good at Philippi these days – the place has gone to ruin since the Romans left – but you can wander all over, whisper from the amphitheatre stage, admire the architecture, and get told lies to by the mendacious but friendly museum guy.
Glykeria makes me think of Philippi. Therefore, Glykeria makes me think of the Apostle Paul. See, he was jailed in Philiipi, since they didn't put up with that sort of itinerant-preaching nonsense back in the day. You can see the jail, but you can't go in because or, ahem, earthquake damage. Bible scholars, don't get too excited: there's a big lake near Amphipoli that's the epicenter of most Greek earthquakes. Anyway, while you're there, you can see the original public WC. The temptation to make comments about Agios Paulus at this point is almost overwhelming…
When I'm done mocking at antiquity, I mentally flag down the next bus going back to Kavala. And listen to Glykeria. While I plan to go to a tavern for some souvlaki and retsina. And more bouzouki music.
You see what I mean. Songs can take you places. That soundtrack in your head can stir up sights, and scents, and sensations you'd thought buried under the sands of time and worn bare by the winds of age. There they are, all fresh and new, whenever the song pops into my head.
Somehow, I'm grateful.
Fact & Fiction by Dmitri Gheorgheni Archive
