Thursday 13 - Soundtrack of My Life

I've had the idea for this post for awhile, but I've not had the time to really devote to it until I forced myself to today.

I love music. I play it all the time, and can't usually be in the car without it. I'm trying to instill a love of this in my daughter as well, and I think I'm doing a good job, as her two favorite songs are not kiddie centered (Three Dog Night's "Shambala" and the Kaiser Chiefs' "Ruby"; we have to listen to them incessantly). I was sitting back thinking a few weeks ago about the songs that I like. Not necessarily because they are the world's greatest, but because hearing them conjures up memories of long drives, people I love (or used to), momentous occasions, times of the year, or childhood. I decided to make a list of 13 songs that, if I had one, would be on my Soundtrack of My Life. There are definitely other songs that I could put on this list if I had the time to think about, but these are the ones that really jumped out of me in the 20 minutes I spent compiling the list.

So here it is, the Soundtrack of My Life (in close to chronological order):

1. Lionel Richie - "Dancing on the Ceiling", "All Night Long": I don't much remember the first LR song, but I was told that it was my absolute FAVORITE song when I was 4, but I can't NOT here the second one and think about art classes when I was 8 and weekend trips to Columbia to visit my grandparents.
   
2. Steam - "Na na na na, Hey hey hey": J made fun of me for listing this song, but I have strong memories of it. My dad had it on a cassette tape (remember those?) of various songs he recorded off of the radio (remember doing THAT?), and at Christmas, while decorating the tree, he would put that in and we'd dance around the house like happy monkeys.
   
3. k.d. lang - "Constant Craving": This song is my "fall" song. I remember hearing it when I was 8 or 9, and it must have been some time in October. EVERY TIME I hear it now I get an image of me standing in a neighbor's large, treeless backyard looking over their chain-link fence just taking in the late evening blue sky dotted with a few wispy clouds and basking in the cool air that signaled the beginning of fall. I particularly love to play this song in fall because it gets me in the mood for the time of year.
   
4. Smashing Pumpkins - "Today": This is a total 8th grade song. I was finally moving away from the crappy Mariah Carey/Paula Abdul days of late elementary school and REALLY starting to listen to good music. Hearing this song gives me specific memories of traveling to Winston-Salem, NC, with my grandparents to, get this, visit Odoul's and a cigarette factory. I guess that was their ideal of culture. It was cool, though. (I must have listened to this song at least 10 times, constantly rewinding the cassette on my Walkman.)
   
5. Seal - "Prayer for the Dying", "Kiss from a Rose": I LOVE me some Seal, even to this day. (Heidi Klum is one lucky lady.) I used to listen to the first song at night when I was going to sleep (along with the rest of the album). I always found it so beautiful. The second song is SOOOOO a 9th grade dance song. Everyone would get so excited and look for the nearest person to dance with. I specifically remember all the girls trying to dance with "the new guy" Nate. We all fawned over him, and the guys hated him because he got all of the attention. It also reminds me of the Batman Forever soundtrack and my first celebrity crush, Val Kilmer.
   
6. Wallflowers - "One Headlight": Hearing this song automatically transports me back to my sophomore year of high school: the first guy I kissed--and who broke my heart, drives with friends, sitting in my room relaxing and thinking.
   
7. Foo Fighters - "Everlong": One of the greatest rock songs of the 90s, if not ever, I VERY SPECIFICALLY remember that this was the song that was playing when I heard that Princess Diana had died. Aside from that morbid image, it reminds me of 11th grade, brooding, the second guy who broke my heart, and driving with friends.
   
8. Dave Matthews Band - "Dancing Nancies": It was my senior year of high school and I was DEEP into some DMB. This is such a happy song for me. It reminds me of a guy a used to date--one of the few who broke my heart but I still am friends with; I even went to his wedding--of hanging out senior year, and of just relaxing and listening to music. I did that a lot.
   
9. R.E.M. - "Leave": It sucks that I have a problem listening to R.E.M. now because of one person who's won't get the validation of being named, but this was MY song when I was in 11th/12th grade. It is so powerful and raw. On late nights studying I would just sprawl out on the floor, close my eyes, and get lost in this song for a few minutes (7:17, to be exact). It is an EXCELLENT driving song; it will take you over.
   
10. Radiohead - "Street Spirit (fade out)": I always loved to just lay still and let this song fill my brain. I specifically remember getting big into Radiohead the summer before college. I was at the beach and would sit on the back porch, rocking for hours in the hammock, listening to this song. It is so beautiful yet mournful.
    
11. Superdrag - "Art of Dying": I first heard this song in Asheville, NC, a few months after J and I started dated. We were coming back from Belle Chere, a local festival, and I was hooked. Whenever I hear it I think of driving back and forth to Ohio, where he's from, and all the memories associated with those travels.
    
12. Claire and Bain Maple Yum Yums: I guarantee no one reading this will have heard of them, which is a crying shame. They were a local band out of Athens, GA, who I discovered when I worked at the Coffee House the summer before my junior year of college. They were a boyfriend/girlfriend duo with a beautiful, folky sound, and they played some of the coolest instruments...like a saw and a washboard. My husband and I got to know each other listening to them play at the Coffee House, and they meant so much to us that we actually played one of their songs as our first dance at our wedding (called "Closer to Me"). Also, when they were in town for a gig at the Coffee House one night my junior year, I invited them to play on my radio show that I had at my college's radio station. It was awesome! By far the best show I ever did. They even crashed on my futon at my on-campus apartment that night. They may have broken up (their relationship and the band) and moved on, but their music still stirs my heart and puts a smile on my face.
    
13. Three Dog Night - "Shambala": At first this reminded me of an episode of LOST, but now I will never hear this song again and not think of my daughter. It was the first song she ever sang and the first real one she liked.

HONORABLE MENTION(S):

• Velvet Underground - "Venus in Furs": I will withhold the reasoning, but I can't help not think of it hearing this song.
• Boyz II Men - Cooleyhighharmony: This for years in my childhood was my drive-to-the-beach soundtrack. I would only put in in when we were halfway so I could build the excitement of almost being there, and for whatever reason it always seemed to be storming while I was listening to it.