I'm sure like me, you have albums or songs that you kept on listening at a particular time in your life, and now, almost everytime you hear them, they remind you of that time.

Whenever I listen to The Fat of The Land, it reminds me of the end of my secondary school. I was staying at my grandparents for a week, since my parents were out, and was revising for the secondary school exams (well not really, since they're piece of cake). And I was listening to TFOTL over and over, on my old walkman, in my bed at night. It also reminds me of Zelda Ocarina of Time, that I was playing a lot that same week.

Surrender reminds me of the time when I discovered it (and the Chems albums altogether). I remember taking it with me when I went to my best friend's flat for the weekend, and we listened to it on his bedroom on repeat during the whole weekend, playing Mario Kart or some other cool game on the Game Boy Advance.

My brother once told me that DYOH always reminded him of a friend, because he first listened to that album at a party at this friend's house, at the time it was just released. That friend passed away since then.

Do it again reminds me of last year's nye because for god knows what reasons, it became the anthem of the party. I hope in 10 years I will remember that rather than throwing up 4 times and spilling my glass on someone's laptop.

Hasir by Modeselektor reminds me of my aunt. It was the first track that came on my iPod when I took the train after her funeral.

I could go on, but that's the few that came to my mind...

This is a fantastic topic, Ben! One that a person can get totally lost in. In some ways I see music is the building blocks of memories, or at the very least the foundations that a memory can fix itself to... Which can be good, bad or bittersweet depending.

I have so many and can go on and on as well. But I'll take on a few. The album Achtung Baby by U2 - I was in the UK for a school semester when that came out. I was 19, old enough to know better and too young to care. That semester was my first time away from home for any significant length of time, far away from family. And there I was, a stupid young American girl, all wide eyed with a head full of stars and crazy idealistic notions. Those 3 months were a whirlwind of change and excitement, and I had this soundtrack to go along with it. I listen to that album now and strangely I don't think back with nostalgia or wish I was 19 again. It treminds me of those times but... I don't know. I appreciate that album for different reasons now that go deeper at nearly 40 years old than when I was in the final throes of being a teenager. Almost like having a different pair of ears.

The song Feeling Yourself Disintegrate by The Flaming Lips reminds me of my grandmother dying. Not in a bad way necessarily. My grandmother was put on hospice and hung on for 6 months. It seemed cruel that life wouldn't let her go. But when death came it was a mercy. I had been listening to a lot of Flaming Lips Soft Bulletin at the time. The morning she died, that song was playing as I was driving to my grandparents house. It's not difficult to listen to it 9 years later but it's one song that consumes all my attention because of what I associate with it. In other words, it's not something I'd listen to with a car load of people on my way to Disneyland! That would just be a bit weird!

As for Chems, well. It's a given there are a number of memories to accompany the songs - some memories of great significance and others, not so much. And I've taken up enough real estate on this site as far as my long winded Chems related posts are concerned. So I'll keep it to one entry for now and go with We Are The Night as my memory-album of choice for now. It's a doozy. Not because it reminds me of a particular moment, but because it reminds me of a 3 year stretch that went from having it all, to feeling like I had nothing, to reclaiming my sense of self my family and my life. That album was the soundtrack to the summer of my 2007 which was amazing and in many ways, the last hurrah. It accompanied me as I watched my husband's downward spiral into addiction. And it was an enormous comfort for me as my family picked up the pieces and rebuilt. It kind of transcends memory, in a way. When We Are The Night was released I read a review that said it was an album that "unfolds as it should." and for some reason, out of all the reviews I've read, out of all the things I've personally said and written down, that little phrase stuck...

And that's it for now.

That is a hard topic. I do associate certain songs with certain people I know or have known. More often I associate songs to a specific moment when hearing them first or generally hearing them in a certin situation. Best Part Of Breaing Up - I will always remember hearing this on a friend's stereo in the UK and he looked totally mad on that stereo left channel-right channel bit. Loops Of Fury I heard first when I was on a bus, passing a sugar factory, just on a roundabout. Always associate LOF with that very moment.

And there are so many, with hundreds of songs...

I do have a lot of memories associated to U2 too Whirly: my brother and my uncle like them a lot so it´s like a soundtrack of my family, they have been in all their gigs here... The Miss Sarajevo song is especially hurtful since my uncle was stationed in the Bosnia War.

And there were the songs that scared the shit out of me as a kid for some strange and unexplained reasons, like Sinead O´Connors Nothing compares 2U and a lot of songs from Madrid band Mecano like this one

It was a time when I was a brat but I pretty much remembered when I was sitting on my mom's vacuum cleaner as she pushed me around the living room while playing records. It was either Donna Summer, SNF sdtk, or Chic around noon time! At night, when My parents would have friends over for parties on the weekends, I would be asleep (as well as my sister and brother) but then we would wake up because the music was too loud! Disco Nights was always cranked up! I would then get out of bed and go to my bedroom door and peek my eye underneath it to see the shoes of everybody dancing and talking. I was always told that when my parents would have people over at night, they would tell me to not to come out of my room unless i had to go to the bathroom, but that usually didn't work. Sometimes my mom would knock on my door and tell me if we were asleep (of course we weren't) and then she would bring us out and then we would got to the living room and dance a little bit with the grown ups. My dad would usually carry me and we would dance from bedroom to bedroom, and then he would always try to give me some beer, but mom would always say 'Dan, don't you dare give him that' with a big smirk on her face!

It was the grooviest times, and the music back then was probably the most memorable as a kid living with parents.

One of my happiest (recent) memories is of listening to all three of Underworld's Riverrun EP's consecutively on a lengthy drive home from some seafood restaurant in the middle of winter. Just as "Showlder" began it started to snow... absolute bliss. Underworld have always been a "late fall/winter" band for me; I've noticed that I'm listening to them more and more as the days get shorter.

Inchem, you totally had the 'cool' parents! With their Disco Nights n'all. How rad is that?

^ They would've been cooler if they were hippies!




This always reminded me of always waking home form jr high school, but sometimes my friends and I would be walking a coulple of blocks down, and all of a sudden, a random lowrider truck would be bumpin its woofers to the max going 10 mph down the street playing MSH! Some of the drivers were cool enough to let us hitch a ride in their truck as long as their bed can hold all of us. So when we heard that bass coming our way, my friends and I would run into the street and hop in the bed of the truck (even with the camper shell on) and fit as many kids as we can! Then the driver would cruise down the street while our ears were pounded away by 2 Live Crew!

<P>.</P>

GuerraRelampago, on 07 November 2011 - 6:00 AM, said:

oh Spain... This band always takes me there <BR><BR>http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCctokeqWyo

Curtis Mayfield - Superfly (LP)



Reminds me of big breasts and pleasure. Good times.

Ah, what a topic... At the same time it's great, sad, fun, happy... Memories we associate with music can take you a long way back, to memories nearly forgotten and relived full blown, like it was yesterday. For instance, i just remembered that back in early 80's, when Cure's disintegration was all the rage and i was like 6-7 years only, my sister used to listen to it often and i remember being really confused. Reason for this is quite simple; cure in croatian means, and it is written like that, the girls, and i remember looking at Cure posters my sister used to have in her room, and thinking why in the hell those people puts on makeup and called themselves girls. Of course, my sister explained to me what cure means, but i still thought it was kinda stupid. Ah, kids...
But latest association with music is of Chems Further, and to explain it i have to get quite personal. I hope you people wouldn't take this against me.
Early in march this year, after 2 years of battle with cancer, my mother died. I wont say much about it, but for you to get a picture of it, she died at home and in my arms. Last half a year of her illness, i had Further in cd drive. And in between job, caring for her when i was at home in the afternoons, and rare times when she could fall asleep i listened to much beloved Further. From the first sound of Snow it really put me in another dimension; i could not to think what is happening in my life, i could for that one hour tone down pain, frustration that i cant really do anything about it and a sense of despair would vanish. When i think about it, it feels like it was only thing that kept me sane thought those last awful months. Today, when i hear Snow, strangely i don't feel sad, it does not remind me of her death, it rather reminds me of her love. It really does lift me higher. I think it always will.
Thank you Ben for this topic

^I admit that I almost balled while reading that!

I find it hard (especially) for my self to discuss my personal life here on the forums because I'm afraid that it will open old wounds from past, especially when music evokes it. But that's mighty brave of you Sandelic to share your memory of your mom. Further (or albums like it) almost takes your present course of emotion and attaches it to the album. It's hard for me to listen to an album that might bring sadness, even though that's not the albums intentions, but im all in for an album that just does the opposite!

Sandelic you are very strong and brave to put yourself out in the open and I am sorry to hear of your loss. It is amazing the gifts that are found in the things that bring comfort. Big love to you, and lots of thanks for your willingness to share your experience!

Thanks Sandelic for making me look shallow.

You people are very kind. I have to admit that it was not easy to press that post button but i also knew that if anyone could connect love of Chems and something that's our own and personal, it would be you.
And Iggy - i don't think that anyone here think of you as shallow
Love you all
On a lighter note, i still cant hear Papa wont leave you Henry from Nick Cave and not to feel slightly sick because i got soo drunk while it was playing for the first time in my life of local flavor of brandy that i actually fell unconscious and gave my friends such a fright. They still tell among themselves that all i was saying during those few hours of going in and out of consciousness was: play me Nick Cave. Ah, youth...

sandelic, on 15 November 2011 - 10:12 AM, said:

Aw, that was quite touching. Thanks Sandelic.

I have a similar connection to Further--it came out during the transition out of a very intense, very deep four and a half year relationship. In some ways the feelings I have associated with this are the same, I think, as yours, though obviously I did not lose someone to death. But I did lose someone in the same way: I am never going to be with them again in the same way, never going to talk with them in the same way, laugh with them and love them in the same way. It was jarring to go from a point where I was talking with someone every day and being with them every chance I could to not talking at all, possibly ever again.

Another World in particular always brings me back to this meshed state of sadness and joy, where I am letting go of that past world and embracing the next. Another heart will forgive...

Damn, it appears all our lives started sucking shortly after Further came out!
My mother went into the final throes of a long battle with breast cancer shortly after they started touring the album (she was actually fine when they were playing the Roundhouse shows... it all happened so fast). We brought her home from the hospital in the hopes that a new treatment might just save her, but her chances were slim... I was basically parked at the computer for a few days while she was being attended to in the next room. I actually made this post while I was trying to keep it together (you'll notice I was a little more obsessive than usual). She died the next day.
In case you're wondering I'm doing fine; I try to keep from bringing it up because it usually starts epic spirals of internet sympathy. But I felt that I should share it since Sandelic's experience was so similar.

I love you guys!! <3

Thanks guys for sharing your experiences. It is good to be reminded that behind your profile names are real people with amazing strengths and unique stories. Kudos to you