Songs that bring you back to a very specific moment

So this thread is more about (to me) how music can bring you to recall very specific moments in your life, whether that's what was playing on the radio when something significant occurred, or when you sought out a certain song for a specific feeling or mood due to significant life changes. Music is healing; music is remedy. I realize there's potential for some possibly emotional/highly personal content (i.e, careful of doxxing thomfoolery) so please post accordingly.

I'll go first. I was going through a divorce and decided to try out racing bikes at the same time. unfortunately, bad things happened in an early season race and I got caught in a crash and popped a collarbone. while convalescing with high-powered pain killers I became fixed on Jon Hopkins Asleep Versions. I mean, that shit put me dead asleep for a few weeks which is tough with a popped clavicle:



Honestly, my mental state at that point was all over the map, but this album brought me so much calm. I listen to it now and it's like a great exhale. I come back to it from time to time and it shouldn't be as relaxing as I think it should be but, man, it slinks me into a soft couch like nothing else. And I guess to the point of this thread, what music tends to be more impactful given you heard it at a time when your soul needed it? And the opposite end to my experience, too; what music has gotten you pumped when a situation "got you pumped"?

 

Too heavy to talk about, man. But this the one for me.

 

Valentine's Day dance. 7th grade. Lisa Renzi. Shiver and sigh.

 

I was in my early teens (actually more like late pre-teens). There was a girl in my first class at a school bigger than the small local elementary where I'd spent all my previous years... (and yes, even in NZ we'd heard of the Ozrark Mountain Daredevils).



Edit: I associate this track with Van Morrison's 'Brown Eyed Girl' for the same reasons (although the particular Jacqui's were indeed blue), but I find no mid 70s cover of that so I presume the tracks on the radio at the time were the originals of both the OMD and Van recordings.

 

Ok this one is somewhat out of left field... but takes me back to the mid-80s when my all-time BF and at-the-time GF were sharing a rather downmarket flat in the Wellington suburbs. We'd play this on returning home from a mid-week drinking session, and when the downstairs neighbors would shut off the power we'd take turns to go outside and turn it on again.

 

A tough time in my late teens...I walked into a record store and heard this song. I bought the album immediately and it became an anthem for that period in my life. At 17 years old, just buying a CD unheard was not a trivial thing.

 

I was just thinking there needs to be a thread for exactly this on SBAF and lo and behold there already is! Thanks to yotacowboy for doing the hard bit and excellent choice of EP for starting off the thread btw.

Anyway, earlier today I was listening to Aphex Twin's Cheetah EP, which was one of 20+ albums I bought almost exactly a year ago when Bleep had an insane sale on Warp records stuff. I was listening to it a lot around the time when the shit really hit the fan here during the first wave of the pandemic. Every day I'd be stuck at home looking after our son who was about 2 and a half years old at the time for like 11-12 hours because my wife still had to go to her office, but kids here were forbidden from going outside (yeah I know, makes no sense) which essentially meant I was forbidden from going outside too. In the evenings once he'd gone to sleep I'd pour myself a (large) drink, put on my headphones and sit up until 2 in the morning trying to catch up with all the work I should have been doing during the day. That and scanning all the online supermarkets to find out who the f**k had any toilet roll left. For over a month I literally went outside only to take out the trash and spent every evening listening to all the new Warp albums I bought in a semi-drunken state. Crazy times man...

 

This track made me love music, properly. 16-ish, 17-ish and it made me realise that there was more music to discover. Collecting music is fun and rewarding. No parent of teacher to tell you that is is wrong or right. It is your thing, your pleasure and your feelings.



There are several long versions. The long versions are sublime examples of grooves that transcend genres. I only play the long version on really good days. It is special.

 

This song takes me back to Venice Beach every time I listen to it, without fail.

We had a little hippie motel room right on the beach and spent most of our time just kicking back, people watching, and catching sunset. Good times.

We flew into LA to see Spiritualized at one of the two shows they were performing in the US on that tour. The show was amazing, but I think the ocean out there in California and Venice Beach in general had a bigger lasting impact on me.

 

After 18 years retail, my first paying gig in mental health was working on a suicide prevention hotline, and that was where I met Smith. I've been called smart, but Smith was the real deal, possibly a genius. He had been in college for physics when mental illness hit him and now he was here. He was young, mid-20s. We worked overnight shifts together, and he was a comet of energy, never slowing down. He'd get pissed at me, "It can't be about you, it's always about the caller!" He pioneered important procedures, like aggressive follow-up for high risk callers and asking about guns - I helped out on that one. He was also kind, inviting me to Thanksgiving one year, the only guest. His spare praise and careful wisdom meant a lot - gold
.
Smith was heavy into music, he played classical as a kid and traveled abroad with a youth orchestra. He loved him some Rock N' Roll, self producing several albums, playing all the instruments. He was a sound engineer as well, and he would describe the craft to me - scoffing when I said Muse's Absolution was a well produced album. He got me into Britney Spears - "Toxic is a perfect pop song," he said, explaining the chord changes to me. He sound designed a well-regarded video by a big indie band. He always seemed on the verge of the breakthrough.

I ended up moving out of state and tried to stay in touch, but Smith wasn't that kind of friend. I heard he entered grad school to become a therapist. About four years after I had last seen him, my ex-supervisor called to tell me that Smith had killed himself.

Smith was a huge Radiohead fan and he loved this song. I'd like to think that he would have liked this cover.



Thanks @yotacowboy for this thread.

Peace!