Has your location and the music you're listening to ever matched perfectly?

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I was listening to that Sigur Ros album today (discovered I actually quite like it after previously thinking it was vastly overrated) and I recalled one of the first times I heard a song (the piano driven one in the second half - something something loftarasa...). I was sitting in a darkened plane on the way to Hong Kong, the windows closed, very snug under a blanket. Something about the smooth, steady motion of the plane, the seemingly-stately progress of forever going onwards, matched to this song immensely. It happened at the time we were either flying over the Gobi Desert or the Himalayas and we had opened a window to look. Now, there is a point in this song where it gets sweepingly loud and majestic (quelle surprise, you might say), and this just seemed to fit perfectly with the unestimable natural beauty I was looking down upon, the soaring guitar equal to our soaring aeroplane. (This perhaps is unsurprising with a Sigur Ros song, which are constructed to match almost exactly these atmospherics anyway). But, it just struck me in a way I'll never forget. Ever had this experience yourself?

― Bill, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

One night this summer, I was riding my bike on an unlit road with forest at both sides. It was dark, humid and very quiet. I felt a bit spooked, but more so exhilirated at the feeling of being the only person in the entire vecinity in a dark environment I can only recall as vast. I put on my MD-walkman. Bjork's 'Harm Of Will' was on. Everything fit, I remember looking around in awe. I'll never forget it.

― Alacrán, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Plane takes off to the Little Mermaid's "Kiss the Girl." Fucking Magic. An over-looked masterpiece.

― Keiko, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Shortly after I graduated from high school, I was driving somewhere during sundown and thinking back a lot and Red Hot Chili Peppers' Under a Bridge (sort of what I consider the song that entirely summed up 6th grade) came on. Interesting and tranquile.

― Luptune Pitman, Tuesday, 16 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Many times, but it's usually deliberate.

― dave q, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Walking around a deserted Whitehaven harbour around 4am one bright July morning, listening to a tape with Jeff Mills on one side and Mouse On Mars ('Iaora Tahiti') on t'other. Cumbria never got any better than that.

― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was on a coach trip through Switzerland in 1984 and the title track of Howard Jones' Human's Lib came on the coach stereo. I was absolutely gobsmacked at the perfect unity of sounds and surrounds.

― Daniel, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

How much time have you got?

Two simple examples, and oddly enough both examples promptly became two of my favourite songs of all time, simply for the 'being there' feeling conjured up.

1. March 21st 1986, hearing "All that love and maths can do" by Durutti Column for the first time, having bunked off school in the afternoon, having seen both girls I had crushes on in the last lesson, then hearing Vini Reilly's eerie guitar echoing around me while gazing up into the perfect blue sky, the first real day of spring, thinking of the two girls, and the warmth of the sun and everything....

2. December 31st, 1992. The day before I'd received an EP with "A winter's dawn" by The Yesterday Sky on it, I'd taped it, loved it and played it a lot that night. The next morning, having struggled off the bus and walking towards the office into work for God knows what reason, "A winter's dawn" comes over the headphones, just as the mist clears around the cold brown brick office and the sun comes up behind it. Bob Wratton sings "There's so much time to go before I see you again" and I'm almost in tears, God knows why. Perfection.

― Rob M, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

First track of the first Neu! album, while the train was speeding between stations underground, with the lights in the tunnel creating a flicker pattern through the windows.

― Sean Carruthers, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tom linked to a site long ago that was filled with examples of this (I wrote one myself.) Any idea where that site is, Tom?

― Mark, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

this thread got off onto a subtangent what glanced on the substance of your question.

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was in the dentists, having a filling drilled, when Aphex's 'Didgeridoo' suddenly started up on Capital Gold/Xfm. It took him by surprise even more than me. It even drowned out my screams when the clumsy sod drilled into my gum by mistake. That is a loud fucking track, as we both discovered after years apart from it. Still, he waived the fee and gave me a gold crown for nothing too. Nice!

― Snotty Moore, Wednesday, 17 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

On a train platform, a very loud boombox was playing whatever song was sampled for "Mike D Is In Love" (anyone know what that is?) very loud w/ an insane echo.

― Mark, Thursday, 18 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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