Playlist

I listened to a music playlist I made quite a while ago and every song took me to a specific time and place in my life. I didn’t realize how powerful music and memory can be. I mean, I understand how songs can remind you of people, places and things; but this took me to not only the circumstances of the songs, but to the reason I chose those songs when I made the playlist!

These songs took me to places that I had forgotten, and then the choice of these songs took me to the time and place in my life that made me want to remember them.

I am not in love by 10CC. It was the year my Mother died. I was wandering around in a daze. I met a guy that Fall, and although I was smitten, he wouldn’t tell me that he loved me. It was our song.

I watched a movie about a choir that were residents of Senior Citizens homes in the Northeast. The movie is called ‘Young@Heart.’ They were singing all kinds of fun, current pop songs. I wasn’t familiar with all the songs, but the movie was great. One day I was listening to the radio and the REAL version of one of their songs came on the radio - Fix You, by Coldplay. I had to pull off the road, the song brought me to tears.  It was a powerful and emotional movie, but until that moment I didn’t realize how it had impacted me. I have both versions.

I used to LOVE the Ally McBeal show. I watched it faithfully for several seasons. After the Robert Downey episode where he leaves her, I stopped watching. Barry White had always been one of my favorite crooners, and when Biscuit and Richard referred to him over and over again as their icon and mentor,  I was thrilled. You’re the First, the Last, My Everything became my theme song for a long time. I sang it to myself all the time.

My very first serious boyfriend that I lived with was a jazz enthusiast. I liked jazz music a lot as well. We were perfection as a couple. A well-oiled machine that worked together in amazing tandem. We bought our first album together, Deodato, and months later acquired a kitten that we named the same. His Pavane for a Dead Princess was one of our favorite songs. I really loved Jeannot. We were too young.

For years I danced in a company in San Francisco. One of my favorite people loved the Grateful Dead. Years later, when the song, The Boys of Summer by Don Henley was released, I thought of her and San Francisco every time I heard the chorus…I saw a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac, a little voice inside my head said don’t look back, you can never look back…and it made me sad, but it made me smile.

I can’t make you love me by Bonnie Raitt is the story of my life. I had been in love before, I had been loved before. I thought I knew what it was supposed to feel like and look like. I thought being married would be more and better. I didn’t realize it would be this lonely.

Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohn was my introduction to Pandora. I had picked a popular rock icon, and this song came on. I LOVED it. I loved the song, the story, the imagery – all of it. I can completely relate to the scene and the scenario. For this, I am ever grateful to Pandora.

You Gotta Be by Des’ree. This is the song that picks me up out of the doldrums – every time I hit the doldrums! Herald what your Mother said, Read the books your Father read…My Mother and her Mother were incredibly wise women. I learned a lot. My Father was an avid reader. He read everything from torn cover trashy paperbacks to the Bible to Shakespeare to Maya Angelou.

‘Nuff said.