back in the day

see, this is the thing that i really love about music: it's like a time machine. limiting myself to three songs that take me back is very, very hard, so maybe someday we'll do a part two. and a part three. deal?

1) ok, this first one might surprise you if you know me at all. because if you know me at all, you know that i'm an adamant country-music-hater. i will not budge on this point.

except. i will budge for the rawling brothers. the first cd i ever owned was theirs. they used to have a hair metal band called crossection and i had their tape and i knew all the words to it by the time i was 5, i think.  now they play full-out cowboy music and i love it. and you might listen to it and think i'm crazy, but his voice takes me back to every part of my life because i wore this cd OUT.

i listened to it in my bedroom when i was twelve and i didn't get invited to that new year's party, i listened to it in my car when i got my driver's license, i listened to it in my car on the way to millar for the first time {tmi: i listened to the song about his wife dying over and over [for two and a half hours] and was a hysterical mess by the time i got there because it was just so sad}, i listened to it in my cabin in the mountains where i lived for a summer, i listened to it in my first apartment, i listened to them live with barclay the first time i brought him home to meet my parents, and again the next year, when we were engaged.
so, without further ado, window in my basement. by the rawling brothers. it takes me back.



2) the second one might not surprise you so much. it's another one of the first ones i think of when i think of songs that "take me back", but not so much in a positive way. in fact, today is the first time i've listened to it in 6 years, because of that. it takes me back to grade 12, and a particularly unfun trip to the hospital to visit someone in the psych ward the week before Christmas. i loved the song at the time but i don't anymore. but still, it definitely fits this list's description.
it's by spoken, and it's called sleep well tonight, and it takes me back.



3) the third one is kind of fluffy and feel-good, but those kinds of songs are good too, even if i tend not to listen to them as often. i first heard it at a show in swift current, where i lived for half a year before moving here. i worked at a jewelry store and went to every. single. show that came to town and often came home with free merch. this song was on a free cd i scored at the februarys' show soon before i moved, and the day i met barclay {two days after moving here} i listened to it on repeat and grinned until my facial muscles started cramping. because i knew.
cheesy, yes, but that's the way it is. and i don't even care.
it's called meant for each other by the februarys, and it takes me back.



there are so many others i could name. but for now, these are my three.