Happy Fantabulous Tuesday!
One of the things I do to wake myself up is blast my iPod on the subway ride to work, and this morning was no exception. I gave DMoe a brand new 8G iPod to download for me (thanks again!), and instead of trying to sift through the hundreds of songs he gave me, I simply hit shuffle and decided to see what popped up.
“Anything” by SWV (the old skool radio remix). Wow.
I was instantly transported back to 1994 – Seana, Taniqua, Felicia and I were in a car driving from Syracuse to Atlanta for Freaknik. The only tape (no cd player) we had in the car was the “Above the Rim” soundtrack, and we listened to it over and over again the entire way. Good times!
Certain songs just take me places.
Like any song on the “slow side” of Jodeci’s first album, Forever My Lady, takes me back to 1992, my 19th birthday, in my dorm room...the night I lost my virginity. Stay, Come & Talk to Me, Forever My Lady, I’m Still Waiting – all those songs played as I thought I was finally becoming a woman. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t becoming a woman just yet…but Jodeci will always have a special place in my heart.
What is it about music that has such an important influence on our memories? We associate songs with emotions, people and places we've experienced in the past. Of course, music isn’t the only influence on our memory: I’ve taken a million photos over the years, and the words I write in journals about my adventures will help to preserve precious moments in my mind for many years to come.
But music does something to me. Something about music evokes so many emotions that are in tune with a certain memory that sometimes I laugh out loud or my eyes well up with tears. Music’s powerful effect over me trumps anything an image, a word or a smell could possibly conjure up.
Certain songs play as the soundtrack to the mental movies we’ve stored over our lifetime. Deep in our long term memory is rehearsed music - music etched in our brain that we associate with a certain feeling, a milestone we’ve achieved, an experience we cherish, or a moment we’d just as soon forget. It becomes autobiographically important in our mental playback. There is always a song that we can relate to where it seems the words were written just for us and what we were going through at the time. The raw emotion in a voice, the beat, the melody - all shape the story of our lives. Music can serve to heal us during a particular time - a natural pain killer - or it can trigger such emotions that it can actually make your heart hurt all over gain.
The incredible ability music has to manipulate our memory and the feelings associated with it are undeniable and inexplicable at the same time. Music synchronizes our brain’s vibrations to the rhythm of the world around us – succeeding in taking us to another place and time.
This morning, I was back 15 years...in car...speeding down 95...with my girls having a blast!
Where does music take you?
-b
