Whenever I hear certain songs or pieces of music, I am whisked into a time tunnel, to that moment when the song became seared into my soul.
Where Evil Grows - The Poppy Family
Unfortunately, this song had dark connotations for me, because it played on the car radio on a trip home from the doctor's when I had just received two painful shots in each knee joint to combat mononucleosis. I was 5 at the time and was in bed for a month with it. When I hear this song I can still see the red uphosltery in our white VW bug.
Maggie May - Rod Stewart
On the opposite side of the spectrum, this song played on the radio as my family moved from Michigan in the US to Nova Scotia, Canada when I was six. When I hear this song, I'm in the cab of the truck as my dad drove, while my mom, baby sister, grandmother and uncle were in the car following behind in our little caravan.
My first intense impressions of the golden seaweed along the rocks by Peggy's Cove always accompany this song for me.
Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
Fast forward to high school, when the house parties we'd have often led to dancing, and eventually this song would encourage us to take that chance and ask the guy or gal on whom we had a crush to slow dance. Oh, the mindblowing feeling of being closerthanthis to a certain someone.
E=mc² - Big Audio Dynamite
When I was 21, I moved from Nova Scotia to Toronto, Ontario, where I blossomed in the glow of Big City life. This song instantly takes me to that time of self-discovery, where I can hear the streetcars, feel the heat of a Toronto summer, experience the recognition in the eyes of the man who is now my husband that we had found each other in all the wide world.
Rusholme Ruffians - The Smiths
This song takes me to that time, still in Toronto, when I was a student at Ryerson Polytechnic University, working towards my film degree by day and as an usher at the O'Keefe Centre by night. This song brings the chill of a fall night, the sound of dry leaves skittering and the grateful warmth of hopping on the subway.
Sucks to Be You - Prozzak
This song takes me to the two years my husband and I spent in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, where we moved so my grandmother could have someone living in the house with her. Although it was a return to my home province for me, and a reunion with the Atlantic Ocean, which I'd missed every day that I'd lived in Toronto, going from a city of millions to a fishing town of 8000 was a bit of shell shock for us. MuchMoreMusic kept us from going completely out of our gourds.
Start Wearing Purple - Gogol Bordello
My current soundtrack is definitely dominated by the music of Gypsy Punk band Gogol Bordello. I'm currently back in my hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia. This music will always make me think of this time in my life, forever more.
So what are the songs that make up the soundtrack of your life?
