Ancient Music

Here is a list of popular songs from my senior year in high school (1983).

The only one that really has any particular associations for me is Elton John's "I'm Still Standing". I got dumped pretty hard by my girlfriend of the time and went through a period of listening to this over and over again out of spite.

(Stop laughing or I'll come over there and beat the crap out of you.)

Yips! to Lawren. Hit the link and find out about your own year.

UPDATE: Oh, what the hell. I suppose it was inevitable that I'd chime in on this. JohnL has a longish essay on musical imprinting, following on a discussion started by Mr. Outer Life and picked up by Mixolydian Don, Lynn S. and others.

My youth seems to have been somewhat different from these other folks. There was always music in my house, but it was almost always classical music, with occassional helpings of jazz of various sorts. My parents never, ever listened to pop music (at least in my hearing). The closest I think they ever got was Dad's Simon & Garfunkel album. So I don't have anything in particular to live down. Thanks be. (I believe the first record my parents ever gave me was a collection of Mozart serenades. I believe the first pop album I ever bought - based on a friend's recommendation - was Fragile Yes.)

As a matter of fact, while my own musical tastes are far more eclectic than my parents', I still don't listen to very much pop, and what I do listen to is pretty much sentimental flotsam from my younger days. In this, I agree with JohnL's take. There are a handful of albums and songs that, over the years, have come to represent markers for particular persons, places and events in my life. I still listen to them on occassion, but I do so for the emotional evocation, not really for the artistic merits of the music itself. The particular song is only important because it happened to be the one playing in the background when I experienced that moment of love, hate, sorrow or joy that I wish to remember.

What's that? You want examples? I gave you one hideous example already. I'm not about to disclose any more! (And no, I don't own any Elton John albums - just reading the 1983 list reminded me of that incident.)

In terms of listening to music for its actual artistic merits, I'll stick with classical and jazz.