Life's Soundtrack

Posting something lighter, because I NEED to.

Certain songs have stuck in my mind over the years, attached to different memories. These songs define some set moment or time in my life, and hearing them, I'm immediately transported back to that moment. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes it's not.  I thought for fun, I'd just list some of these songs for me, and you can give a shout out to the songs that are in your life's soundtrack in the comments if you want.

1.) "I Swear" by Boyz II Men. Junior High, where our hero feels love's first painful sting. More specifically, my first real dance, and the first time I danced with a boy. His name was Greg, and I'd had the biggest crush on him all year, and he knew it. Somehow my friends talked him into dancing with me. A storm was going on during the dance, and in the middle of the song, the power went out. Greg ditched me, and I found out maybe he wasn't that great of a guy after all.

2.) "Closing Time" by Semisonic. This one is really random, but it stuck with me. I was at some party with friends from high school. In my mind, it was a New Year's Eve party, but looking up the song's release date, that can't be right. It had to have been something else. At some point we ended up at someone's house who had some guitars and a keyboard, and a jam session ensued. They chose this song, and gave me the keyboard part. It was actually pretty fun, so this song is a happy one for me. It comes on the radio and I'm back in high school, in a group of kids just playing some music and having fun.

3.) "Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz. In which our hero bonds with a friend over near tragedy. My first (and only) year in college we flew to Ireland. A few hours into the trip, our plane was struck by lighting and plunged a couple hundred feet before the pilot was able to get things under control again. I was sitting next to my friend Stacy on the plane, and we were both pretty traumatized by the whole thing. For the rest of the semester, it was our inside joke to change the words of this song to "I want to get away, I want to DRIVE away. . ."

4.) "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind: In which our hero joins a sorority. This was my candidate (same as pledge) class song. We changed all the words to things about the sorority, and sang it in front of all of the current members. This song makes me think of my fellow candidate class members. Good feelings.

5.) "Slide" Goo Goo Dolls. The hubby and I have never really had "a song", but this one comes pretty close. If only for the lyrics that say "Do you wanna get married or run away?" Since we eloped and then left the state, whenever we'd hear this song we'd follow up that part with "Or both?" and smile at each other.

6.) "Clocks" by Coldplay. This one isn't happy. It puts me in a funk any time it comes on, which might seem weird until you hear why. I listened to this song at midnight on January 1st, 2005. The hubby was in Iraq, and the kids and I had just left my grandparents' house, where we had been visiting with them and my dad. I had gotten a call while we were there that my mom had finally asked to go back to the hospice, which meant she would be gone soon. I stopped at the top of a hill at midnight to watch all the fireworks going off in the neighborhoods around Fort Hood. I listened to this song while the kids slept in the car. I contemplated the year that was starting, knowing it was going to be the year my mom died. This song puts me right back in that car at that moment.

7.) "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train. In which our hero gets to see something awesome. This song means one thing to me: Florida. The week we were in Florida to see the shuttle launch, this song had really taken off, and the radio stations were playing it All. The. Time. The result? I now have a Pavlovian response where I think of Florida and the shuttle launch every time I hear this song. Not a bad thing at all.

I'm sure there are other songs I could come up with if I think hard enough. Maybe I'll come back and edit the post as I think of them.