rhythmaning | Another Girl, Another Planet

One of the colleagues who got me interested in starting a blog has a post on his own blog (http://weblog.brunton.org.uk/), The Soundtrack to Your Life. This resonated with me. Another colleague managed to get me talking about former romances last week, and I think these things are inextricably linked: music can conjure up such rich emotions, located in a specific time and place. (What is also interesting are the people and places which don't have any soundtrack associated with them - these are the longer relationships, the longer stays - maybe because there are so many different tunes that no one bit of music fits.)

But I was surprised: instead of a list of former girlfriends associated with songs from my youth, most songs evoke memories of places or events, not the faces I expected.

I believe it is often the words in pop songs that determine the mood: the words tell you what to think and how to feel. Improvised music (read "jazz") and non-vocal classical evoke feelings through the notes, not the words; they are freer, and not so easily tied to people or place. (I don't really like voval jazz: there are too many poor jazz singers; and even someone like Ella can remove the the feeling from the words - just listen to her version of "Love for Sale", a happy-go-lucky snappy song; and then listen to the words. One exception to this must be Billie - a voice to draw tears.)

The list is long, too, so I will split it over three posts.

So here are some of the sounds which make up the soundtrack to my life.

Another Girl, Another Planet (the Only Ones): the perfect post-punk power pop song (and a contender, with so many others, for the best song ever recorded...), this one evokes a specific night, a late night gig a ULU in perhaps September 1978 - the Only Ones in concert; and a wonderful gig it was. I'll get killed but I don't care about it. (The next day, I went down with pleurisy and was ill for several weeks.)

Cecilia (Simon & Garfunkel) and Walking on the Moon (the Police): 1978 and 19'79: in the afternoon with Cecilia, up in her bedroom; and walking back from her place from Muswell Hill to Hampstead, past Highgate Woods in the early summer mornings. 'Nuff said.

Armed Forces (Elvis Costello and the Attractions): sitting around in a schoolmate's house, playing this, wondering what to do in 1978.

America (Simon & Garfunkel): I don't have any S&G, and frankly don't like that kind of music much - but it can be evocative: watching the cars on the New Jersey turnpike, the beautiful Manhattan skyline across the river, trying to hitch-hike coast-to-coast across the States in July and August 1980 with Gerry.

Similarly, I'm So Bored of the USA (the Clash) evokes a couple of days spent waiting for rides in Ohio; for one whole day, the only lift we got was in a police car, and that was five miles in the wrong direction. And the Clash - well, I have a lot of the Clash...

And of course Route 66 (pick your own version - I was into the Count Bishops at the time), which was basically the route we took across the south west: Alburqurque; Flagstff, Arizona; over to LA, arriving to co-incide with the increasing body count of the Hollywood Strangler and an increase in paranoia. (I didn't like LA.)

(Oh my. I was writing this yesterday, using an LJ client; and despite my clicking save every few minutes, the last version I can find has half of what I wrote missing. Which means I’ll have to write it again. But it will be different – could be better, could be worse. Jeez!)