Monday, October 21, 2013

Music and Memory Lane

I grew up listening to all genres of music. I listened to rhythm and blues, and pop/rock with my Mama, classic country with my Daddy, and gospel music with my entire family as we attended church together. I had no idea as I was listening to those songs when I was a little girl that later in my life they would take me back to days gone by, but somewhere between my teenage years and adulthood I became aware that indeed they do.

When I hear certain songs my memories are set to music and play in my mind so vividly that all I have to do is close my eyes and I see and feel those moments as if I were there again. I hear a Credence Clearwater Revival song and I am 8 years old, riding in the car with my Mama. It's springtime and the window is down, I am singing along, wide open, my long curly hair is blowing in my face and looking as wild as an untamed lions mane.

I hear Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash or Hank Williams, and my Daddy is at the kitchen counter pouring himself a cup of coffee on a Saturday morning as he softly sings Okie From Muskogee, I Walk The Line, or Your Cheatin' Heart.

Any old time gospel hymn I hear sends me back to Spring Street Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia where I am, of course, wearing a frilly dress, complete with crinoline, patent leather shoes, and gloves. I am standing from my pew and singing along with the adults as I fan myself to alleviate some of the heat and humidity that crept in during the southern summer.

Bob Seger, The Eagles, or Donna Summer come on the radio and it's 1980, I am a senior in high school, and I haven't a care in the world. I just know that life is amazing. I have my big hair with lots of hair spray and lip gloss working for me. My jeans are so tight breathing is stressful on the seams, and I'm loving life.

A Prince song, some Morris Day and The Time, Atomic Dog, or Planet Rock and I am at the Limelight in Atlanta, Georgia on a Saturday night. I have climbed through a whole in the side of a staircase and arrived on the top of a speaker where I am dancing (after a few alcoholic beverages) in five inch heels..oh yes... I was getting it done..

Billy Idol's Nice Day For A White Wedding... It's 1983 and I am getting married and my daughter is on the horizon.

In The Garden, Amazing Grace, or Precious Memories and I am taken back to funerals of those that I love more dearly than words can convey.

When I hear Lionel Richie's Say You, Say Me, my daughter is two years old and singing Say Me Say Me...and Billy Ray Cyrus' Achy Breaky Heart has my son back at two singing his rendition while playing his little air guitar.

T. Graham Brown's I Tell It Like It Use To Be comes on and I relive my parents painful divorce and how I never wanted to speak about it to anyone who asked how they were.

All of the memories of my life, happy, sad, scared, hurt, tender, loving moments are so much better when as I replay them they are set to music.

Sometimes they bring a smile to my face, and sometimes they send tears rolling down my cheeks, accompanied by an incredibly strong ache in my heart for the absence of those I love in my life and the longing to have them here with me.

Time goes by so quickly, and as it does more songs accompany more memories and I welcome that. Whether they are of the happy or painful type I find myself grateful to be taken back to them. The happy ones, because they are treasures to me, and the more painful ones, although they bring tears, are reminders of precious people who have blessed my life and others are reminders of lessons life has taught me.

Many times I play songs intentionally to be taken back to moments in my life that I cherish and other times I turn the radio on and I'm whisked back to a memory unexpectedly.

For me, memory lane set to music is the most amazing place to visit. A place where I spend moments with those I love through my memories of them ....I'm not always sure exactly where the journey into my mind will take me as the music plays, but I do know for sure that I am always grateful for the trip.



 
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