hyper-specific music memories

akon - locked up

jan 1 2007, was sick in bed all day from new years, was driving to a sports bar to watch football with bros, was on s. dixie somewhere between 128th & 120th

akon - smack that

was sitting outside the hospital waiting to pick up my mother from work, in her taurus, my brother was in the passenger seat, i was hoping the song would finish before she got in the car

akon - don't matter

it was winter, i was driving on broadway, had passed jimmy johns, was freezing, realized that this might be one of the five best singles of the decade

nelly - country grammar

jcc, the room next to the dance studio, with the vending machines & the tv up in the corner, the box was on, we were supposed to be playing wallball in the racquetball courts but didn't feel like it

lil wayne - go dj

i had driven my dad to go pick up a truck, and i was sitting in the car, gravel road, just waiting for him to tell me i could leave, realized how dope this song was

the-dream - shawty is a ten

was driving to roasters n toasters to meet andy, it was early afternoon, hadn't yet heard the song on the radio, was in the eclipse, sun was shining

the fugees - killing me softly

down on us1 by UM, going west, probably going from a baseball game

juvenile - back that azz up

was lying on the floor of the living room watching this on the box hoping my mom wouldn't walk into the room bcuz there was a huge naked ass on the screen

trick daddy - take it to the house

walking out of the youth fair, jd was singing the "more punch than a bowl of juice" line, wasn't sure which song it was yet

yeah, the bit in "this flight tonight" by joni mitchell where it cuts to the song on the radio always makes me think of this very specific time walking into the study hall in the morning with blue on my headphones, mainly because my last year all my friends got totally obsessed with that album after i traded it with a guy i knew's sister for a spare copy of psychocandy

Bass Selective - Blow Out (part 2)
lying on the couch of freezing cold house in manchester. trying to get some sleep b/c have to catch the train back to london in the morning. coming down with a very bad cold, also hung over, so not really thinking straight, unable to drag myself next door to massive house party playing all this kind of music, but it was like OMG BEST SONG IN THE WORLD <3<3<3

^^^ btw it wasn't 92 or anything, i was too young then, enough time had passed that people were playing this stuff for nostalgia sake almost

the ping pong song by enrique iglesias will always remind me of driving in the backseat of an alpha romeo through the latvian countryside with some random latvian ppl i barely knew at all and thinking THIS SOUNDS AMAZING!!!

master p - make em say uhh
sitting in the living room early middle school watching this video and wondering why everything was tinted gold

britney spears - baby one more time
laying on my side watching this video and wondering what "show me how you want it to be" could possibly mean

notorious big - mo money mo problems
summer camp 8th grade me and my friend argue over whether or not puff refers to biggie as "b.i." in the video. to end the dispute he insists that "he says in the song *deep voice* 'B-I-G P-O-P-P-A'" and then we play the song and jump on beds. no homo.

green day - basket case
my second time on stage at the poetry slam the dj plays this as my entrance music. i pogo just offstage to get my adrenaline up before i get on the mic. the dj sees me and thinks i'm real excited about the song. everybody else gets different songs on every piece, but this becomes my theme song.

sonic youth - providence

song came up on this mixtape while i was driving around downtown providence after failed attempt to figure out where a friend's party on federal hill was, forgot the address, called somebody and was leaving a message and realized yes, it is in fact ten thirty and i am calling from providence, rhode island. THURSTON!!!!

cool!

weezer's "beverly hills" will always remind me of the summer I had 4 surgeries because of an intestinal abscess

- "Beat on the Brat" Ramones

I am 15 and I on an airplane heading to Germany to visit my grandmother. I am with my parents and oh god they're SO EMBARRASSING.

- Anything by Operation Ivy

Reminds me of riding the bus to high school on LI because I listened to that tape nearly every morning for a year.

- "California" by Luna

I am 17 years old and I'm sitting on an Amtrak train heading from Delaware to NY and returning home after visiting my then boyfriend for the weekend. We had sex for the first time that weekend and I am head over heels in love. I pretty much cry the entire way and listen to this track over and over again.

- Anything off 3 Ft. High and Rising

It's freshman year in college and I'm visiting aforementioned bf at his school. We spend most of the weekend in bed laughing and getting stoned. I've never been happier.

- River Euphrates

I'm a senior in college and at a party in a dorm somewhere in SoHo. Everyone has been doing coke all night and the sun is starting to rise. Someone puts on this song and the room goes quiet. People start nodding their heads and I think damn I love this song.

- The first album by The Walkmen

Sunday mornings and hot coffee in the spring of 2004 in London.

- "Pull" by Richard Buckner

I am twenty years old and in New Mexico visiting my boyfriend at the time. We drove along a deserted highway late at night while this album played. I think we both knew it wouldn't last much longer but neither wanted to admit it just yet.

"Stand and Deliver" by Adam and the Ants

Driving down Sunset Blvd. in LA in 2000 with my best friend who I was out there visiting.

I have a lot of these.

post them!

Punk Rock Academy by Atom and his Package lol

I've just graduated from college and moved to Boston. I am living in a mouse infested shithole in Allston with four other people that I pay $200 a month to sublet. I have just met Dustin who will become by best friend for the next couple years. I bartend by night, temp at a gov office by day, drink way too much and am generally pretty miserable.

dead kennedys - i kill children

high school. listening to punk rock mix tape very very loud, driving up the freeway to the next town over for some school event. my best friend was riding with me. was running super late as usual so it's like OK, let's see how fast mom's old car can go! which turned out to be about 90. didn't get caught though.

david bowie - ashes to ashes

paris. distinctly remember having one of those extra miserable days like.. it is cold, gloomy, housemate's away, no internets access, friends are all many timezones away and don't have the phone minutes to call anyhow, don't feel like doing anything, and then this comes on the radio.

bauhaus - double dare

riding in the car w/a bunch of friends after sonic youth concert in the mid-90's. this song is hilarious.

riding home at night from a florida vacation in the backseat listening to deicide's serpents of the light while a rainstorm rages outside

fucking intense!

the i kill children one made me lol. don't know why. i know i have a bunch of these but don't remember until i hear the song.

frank sinatra- high hopes

it is my friend's brother's 14th birthday party and the turntable is inside and the speakers are outside and he is dancing with the girl he likes to 'i ran' by a flock of seagulls and my friend and i lock the doors and put 'high hopes' on instead.

"Been Caught Stealing" - bouncing around the loungeroom at a sharehouse in Canberra, pakouring off the walls in our sneakers singing along to the "DA DA DAD DADA" bits really loud.

"Katysong" (Red House Painters) - tears, tears and more tears and they just wouldnt stop.

iggy pop - now i wanna be your dog

i am 17 (i might have been 18 and this was a year later, maybe this memory isn't specific enough) and i just climbed a 2 mountains with my friend and we are driving home too tired to talk but we love this song!!!

the supremes - i hear a symphony

when i was 20 i went to columbus, ohio for the first time and went to giant eagle and this was playing (giant eagle always has the best music) and we were buying stuff to make food for friend's now-husband's basketball tournament the next day. i was extremely tired and hungry because i drove a lot and it was the same day i drove through kentucky, which had weird gas pumps. we also got some of those gross mushy rainbow cookies. the next day we left the remainder of the cookies on top of the car at the park and someone took them. suckers. i ate a hot dog i cooked on one of those tiny portable charcoal grills, and made kool-aid out of those little packets that don't come with sugar and was gifted the leftover kool-aid packets because everyone knows i love kool-aid.

sorry for all the ands

i know i have a bunch of these but don't remember until i hear the song.

very true of me as well

i tend to associate music with certain time periods rather than specific incidents

boris - absolutego

Winter. 19. My car has broken down and is sitting at the mechanic, nearing their 60 day deadline where I have to pay to fix it or tow it out of their lot. I can't afford to fix it or have it towed, so I'm just careening toward the deadline with dread. I'm up at 5 every day to walk a mile to the bus stop. I board the #7 to take the hour ride to the mall, where I wait another half hour to pick up the shuttle. The shuttle picks me up and takes about 90 minutes to get me to class. In these circumstances I get up every morning and layer up, don headphones under my beanie, and trudge through the dark listening to 10,000 foot amps drone and feed back. The walk, ride to the shuttle, and shuttle ride to class give me just enough time to listen to the album/track twice, and I do it every day for 2 months.

that's just so hoos

Fleetwood Mac - Over & Over
Picked a girl that was in one of my college classes up for a date to see some show, I wanted to impress her so I sang along in falsetto to this song. I didn't really know all of the lyrics. I don't think she liked it v. much.

Wipers - Tragedy
Woke up this morning and played this song five times before leaving for work. I was carpooling with a friend, a prostitute stopped us on the way to my car and told us that if we were not already a couple we would make a very interesting looking one.

John Lennon - Isolation
I pick up the plastic ono band album on my lunch break, get off work, wash dishes and think "damn this song is the first one on this album that's really good." But even though it's soul crushing or something I don't feel too bad because I enjoy washing dishes before my girlfriend gets home.

Captain & Tenille - "Love Will Keep Us Together"
Summer 1975, age 12, on the way to baseball practice, this song happened to be playing the first time I saw naked boobies in a comic book. (a chapter of "The Human Gargoyles" in a Skywald horror mag)

Terence Trent D'Arby "Wishing Well"

7 yrs old on a Friday night, chillin in my bedroom, had my clock radio tuned into to my favorite radio station Q106 (a sticker for which I had on my Huffy BMX bike), listening to some top 40 jamz while I opened each desk drawer and used a felt-tip marker to trace outlines of and label drawer contents so I would know precisely where everything needed to go when it was to be returned to the drawer. Objects included scissors (which were fun to trace) and batteries (D size).

Captain & Tenille - "Love Will Keep Us Together"
Summer 1975, age 12, on the way to baseball practice, this song happened to be playing the first time I saw naked boobies in a comic book. (a chapter of "The Human Gargoyles" in a Skywald horror mag)

― WmC, Thursday, November 5, 2009 1:57 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is gangster

Picked a girl that was in one of my college classes up for a date to see some show, I wanted to impress her so I sang along in falsetto to this song

This sideways reminds me of another:

Beach Boys "Good Vibrations": when I was about 17 I was having this crazy weird long distance affair with a guy in his mid 20s, and he came to visit me unexpectedly one time (much to my parents utter disapproval), anyway somehow the topic came up that I completely hated "Good Vibrations", so he spent the entire weekend going "la la la la laaaa, lala la!" at me whenever there was a pause in conversation, which would crack me up.

Strange times.

iggy pop - now i wanna be your dog

i am 17 (i might have been 18 and this was a year later, maybe this memory isn't specific enough) and i just climbed a 2 mountains with my friend and we are driving home too tired to talk but we love this song!!!

― Peepoop Patel (harbl), Wednesday, November 4, 2009 9:08 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this song reminds me of when that wizard turned me into a dog

whoa cool

i'm sorry for you my friend - hank williams
my (ex)gf has yelled at me for something. i forget what. she has slammed the door and gone back to her place and i have started drinking red wine. i put on this hank williams record and as it plays i work my way through the bottle. i set it down as the record starts to skip 'i'm sorry for you--i'm sorry for you--i'm sorry for you' and then the wine kicks in. i lay on the couch staring at the speakers. 'i'm sorry for you--i'm sorry for you--i'm sorry for you'

High school age me, late at night, alone in my parents' house, simultaneously listening to Skinny Puppy's Too Dark Park album on the stereo while half-watching some crazy Christopher Walken sci-fi movie on TV called Communion. Sample on one of the songs is something like: "'Scared... of who we are?' 'I'm not scared.' 'Hmm, what are you?' 'Scared...'". That song comes on, the sample pops up, and immediately afterward it's being repeated in the film on television. Freaked the hell out of me.

cam'ron - i used to get it in ohio

specific memories of ohio in march 2009

black dice - live loop

a shortcut between the produce wholesaler and the bike shop thru a kinda dodgy residential area, this on my head phones

lol hipster

lol i wish, hipsters are cool

hipsters are cool

O_O

well, hip

also no need to buy hotdogs, large pile at end of hallway

Alabama - Greatest Hits Vol. III

My older friend Greg, 14, invited me and a couple other of his neighborhood friends, all 12, to spend the day at Imperial Beach. The best part was that his dad Chuck was driving us all out there in his RV, which was a magical wonderland stocked with back issues of Playboy that Chuck was OK with Greg having around. I guess they were there to distract Greg from the pain of the recent divorce. Chuck's distraction was a cooler of beer that he hung out in the RV and consumed while we played Nerf football and built sandcastles on the strand. On the way home I suddenly developed super bad diarrhea that I struggled to hold in because the RV bathroom was non-operational and I was too intimidated by both Greg and Chuck to ask to stop. Chuck had this new Alabama album on the tape deck and I remember thinking, "so this is what 'country' sounds like."

Cameo - She's Strange

Ive been working at this place for 2 years & its so poorly run & the boss makes us work 10 hour days, yells at us for taking lunches that seem longer than a half hour, makes us work weekends & generally micromanages all of our work. We suspect she has narcissistic personality disorder. she makes me come in on a weekend, and when i say i cant make it til 3 she goes through my desk and deposits it all on the floor. When I come in she decides to have a talk w me, so I sit there, surrounded by papers that had been organized in my desk, and shes being a crazy person telling me i need to come in more often & do even MORE hours (i was doing literally 50-60 hrs a week) & the radio is playing "She's Strange" by cameo. & i almost started laughing

left the job not 2 months later

shellac - didn't we deserve a look at you the way you really are

package of LPs i bought from touch & go arrives, including new shellac album! so excited! i go over to the college radio station and put this on..
...
...
...
...
...
...
WTF

Dream Academy - Life in a Northern Town
Lying in bed before school on morning in jr. high, listening to the radio and waiting to see if we have a snow day (we did).

B-52s - Planet Claire
Listening to my Walkman while riding in the back seat of my parents car in Baltimore on the way to a wedding that I am really excited about for some reason. I'm wearing long red gloves and a bright yellow sweater.

Prison Sex - Tool
Listening to my Walkman while sitting under a tree near a water feature in a really pretty corner of an office park in Boulder, CO on a stunningly gorgeous day waiting for my shift to start at work.

love that shellac song. I remember putting it on while driving home from the record store where I bought it and lollin somewhere around minute 3.

The Beatles - Hey Jude
Several years ago, there was this person who would park directly underneath our bedroom window at approximately 1am and play this song on his car stereo over and over again, for at least half an hour each time. This went on for several weeks, but it wasn't every night that he did this. Finally, I reached the point where it became excruciating, so I went to the kitchen, with the intention of throwing an empty glass bottle at the person's car and screaming at him/her. Right as I reached the kitchen window with bottle in hand, the music stopped, a well-dressed black man got out of a newish Acura and crossed the alley and went in the neighboring building. After that, the late night ritual ended.

bob dylan - a hard rain's gonna fall
sitting with my friend in his school dorm rating each line of the song out of 10 as it came up

yall sound fun

camping in north cornwall, august 1996. sat in passenger seat of car parked by the tent, eating lunch. radio news announced this: http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/clinton.html. then they played wannabe by the spice girls, which was #1