I’m currently listening to Mike Oldfield’s album Islands – I’m getting a greater range of music at work now I have my iRiver – but it’s strange. Listening to it, I am thrown instantly back to the days when I listened to this on my walkman (released just before the advent of cds, I think I actually had it on a bought cassette, with oddly one less track than the later released cd) as I did my paper round after school on a Friday.
I also listened to this as I wrote the third part to my first (uncompleted) novel, Ruins of the Old, in blue ink on wide ruled looseleaf paper. There is a part during The Wind Chimes, part 2 that even now, with my brother hundreds of miles away (actually today he’s in Las Vegas!) I can still here him shout from another room in the house “Thomas!”
It never ceases to amaze me how sound can bring back memories. Truly amazing…
I like to listen to the radio for this reason, as even though I don’t like lots of the music that’s played, it gets tagged in my mind as part of my life to be stored for the future. Then I end up liking songs because they “remind me of what I really am” (2 pence to anyone who knows where that’s from).
Scent can be even more evocative, but teasing in a way as you often get the feeling without the memory. Foreign travel is good for this of course, as you get to experience things like plants and food that you can’t take home.
There’s probably a way of combining scent and sound to make sure precious time stays precious in your mind.
even though I don’t like lots of the music that’s played, it gets tagged in my mind as part of my life to be stored for the future
An example of this would be Tubthumping’s 1997 I Get Knocked Down or Gala’s Freed From Desire, both of which are inextricably linked to a week in the Lake District just after Princess Di’s funeral, condensation filled minibus’ and Atlantic 252 — my first National Trust working holiday! *grins*