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.

Three songs to the wind.

I feel like you're asking a lot of me by limiting the song choice to three. So I'm going to try by best to choose three good ones. I scanned through my iTunes to pick three epic songs that people would admire me for loving. But then I went a little further back then any of those songs would have taken me.

Billy Joel was one of my dad's favorite artists from the seventies. In the early days of High School I found his greatest hits album and fell in love. This shared love of his piano driven rock melodies and brilliant lyrics provided us with ample bonding time. I have distinct memories of driving around downtown Calgary listening to our favorite tunes and talking about how great we think he is. Scenes from an Italian Restaurant was and remains one of our favorites. It fills my heart with the joy of a shared father daughter experience in a way that can and should never be traded.

My best friend Karlie and I spent a lot of time driving in our last year of High School. We lived about forty minutes outside of the nearest city and were involved in music theory lessons in that city. This required us to spend at least eighty minutes a week together in a car. Beyond this, we liked to just go in, see a movie, go to Burger King, maybe do some shopping, drag AJ along if we wanted. We truly loved him and he survived a lot. Because of all of this time, a playlist developed making these songs forever reminiscent of the time, age and general angst. Alanis Morissette's Ironic was one of our favorites. We made up a story about one of the line's that I'm not going to tell. This songs takes me back to everything that we ever felt, planned, did and didn't do. High School wasn't the best four years of my life but those times, in that car, on that road, with Karlie, have to come close.

This last one is just for me. It doesn't involve any bonding experiences and doesn't take me that far back. In the last year of my undergrad degree, a professor told me about how his brother took a music fast for two weeks. He didn't avoid the music others were listening to but stopped putting it on for himself. He said that after the two weeks, music became entirely new for him. I took this on for myself and miraculously survived. I'd never survived any sort of fast before. The first album I listened to was Sufjan Stevens' Seven Swans. To Be Alone with You continues to change me, every time I listen to it.

So I seriously suggest you follow these links and listen to the songs. The whole songs. And while you're at it listen to Sia's Lullaby, The Killers Good-night, Travel Well and Ingrid Michaelson's The Chain. These were all songs that didn't have the story behind them to include in this post.

So what about you, Suz? Speak your experience of music.

i'm sending you back in time

for the next topic:
- pick three songs that, you know, "take you back"
- say where and when they take you back to, and why, and -- if i may go all therapist on you -- how does that make you feel?