music really does shape one's memories in an amazing way

[ed miliband]

i suppose a few of you have seen this video:

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(i think it might have even been posted here?)

my friend's mum is a music therapist who works with elderly people suffering from dementia, and even singing the lyrics of an old song can apparently trigger certain, unrelated memories in a sufferer.

got me thinking about how music has shaped my memories.

so for example, listening to elliott smith reminds me very strongly of being 13/14, from winter 2006 to the summer of 2007. i listened to him non-stop and during that time i had my first girlfriend and break-up, and i generally just grew up a lot, and listening to his music reminds me vividly of that. this sense of recollection is so strong that listening to a particular album, xo, for example, transports me back to the place i was when i first listened to it (so frankfurt, in that case).

these songs in particular:


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a year later and i was kind of a completely different person and really got into hip hop. i'd get drunk and high with my friends and we'd listen to lil wayne (this was before he died, 'cos he is dead now even if he is alive). such vivid, almost triumphant, memories listening to these two:


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for a more recent example, i kinda went mad december last year - i was not enjoying uni and lots of other stuff. i heard an old grime instrumental that really captured my melancholy feeling and listened to it a lot. i stopped when i started feeling better, and then i listened to it again last weekend (for no particular reason). instantly the feeling of being stuck in my miserable little uni room feeling like shit came back to me:


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[No_Leaders]

It really does and that's the beauty of music. I can listen to a certain song or a band and it instantly takes me back to a time in my life, or sometimes just an event. Some songs i can listen to or a CD and it'll remind me of listening to that cd driving around with an ex who i was dating at that time. There's things i remember i'd listen to as a kid on the radio, and hearing one of those songs brings me back to being in elementary school, building a fort in my room listening to that song on the radio. Music is definitely one of my passions and has helped me through so much in my life. It even got me interested in radical politics before i had ever opened a book by karl marx or peter kropotkin. Listening to bands like Propagandhi, Fifteen, Dead Kennedys, Crass, Pinkterton Thugs, etc. really opened my eyes and made me look into these things they were discussing.

[NewLeft]

I know EXACTLY what you mean. Whenever I listen to music from when I was younger, I begin to feel like I'm that age again. It also means abandoning alot of music from times you hated.

[Zav]

It also means abandoning a_lot of music from times you hated.
This is so very true. I loved Guns N' Roses and Green Day when I was younger, and now I associate them with events and people I'd love to forget and don't listen to them anymore.