06 December 2010

You can sell your baseball cards just to pay your rent

My school does a "stop the bop" music torture device during its annual "Cancoming" fundraiser event. The concept being that they play a really annoying song during passing period, before school, and after school and will not stop playing it until a certain amount of money has been raised. I get the point, but I cannot deny how much I want to stuff my ears full of wax when it happens. My solution is to simply play the music on my laptop as loud as possible to drown it out (moderate success rate so far). The first song that came on when I tried this today is the starting point for my writing:



This song, "Capturing Moods" by Rilo Kiley, reminds me of a very specific time and place.

I was 19 years old and a sophomore at Mizzou. It was winter, and I was wearing my favorite winter outfit. Am I the only one that has one of these? It isn't the same now as it was then, but it was much more about the outerwear than my actual outfit. Brown peacoat, plaid brown scarf, brown/white stocking cap, jeans, snow boots. It was really all about that peacoat. It has long since worn itself out, is missing a button, and has a bright orange puff paint stain on it from one of those crafting nights I ended up going to at Brady Commons, but I still love it. I have a new coat I don't love as much (but, to be fair, it's warmer than the peacoat). I like peacoats because they are generous to a fat dude's body. Anyway, so I'm in that outfit. It's nighttime, and I'm walking out of Hudson Hall toward A&S to take a night test for one of my classes. As I'm walking, it starts snowing. It doesn't snow hard enough to make it slick (yet), but it is snowing hard enough to show up briefly as a fluffy reminder on the sleeve of my coat. While I walk, "Capturing Moods" comes on my CD player right as I get to Kuhlmann Court in front of A&S.

It was funny, though, because my mind instantly went there. Without choice. I was standing in my classroom trying to drown out the ravioli song, and in a moment I was a teenager again at Mizzou walking in falling snow. A good memory.

The point here being- what songs instantly take you to a very specific time and place? Describe it. It'll be fun.

3 comments:

  1. I have a lot. One example: songs from John Legend's first CD remind me of the semester between finishing college early and doing Teach for America. I was living in an apartment by myself and I didn't have cable or internet so I listened to a lot of music and John Legend seemed to be played a lot. It instantly takes me back to that apartment and cooking dinner.

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  2. "colhearted snake" - takes me instantly back to playing in our back yeard on 18th. i had my tape player sitting on top of the slide on the swingset and we were playing "pioneers" (remember playing that??)

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  3. I've got one with you in it! When I listen to Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley I think of that time we were listening to it in my old contour. We pulled into my garage before the song was over. We decided to turn it up real loud and just wait until it ended. It echoed pretty loudly in the garage and added a lovely ambiance to the song.

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