Music: The Good Times & The Bad Times

[Zf098]

So often (almost always), we talk about music and the good times and great emotions we associate with it. Today, I was reminded of the opposite. Sometimes, music can dredge up some sad memories. It's not an excessively sad (or long, for that matter) story, but the thought behind it all just stuck with me today.

I follow quite a number of people on social media and one of the guys I follow usually makes a "today, I'm listening to _____" post. Today's album was The Stroke's "Angles." I don't particularly care for that album much these days. It reminds me of a car crash I had back in 2012. I was driving home from a relative's house one afternoon right after a huge storm (I think a Hurricane had just hit New Jersey or something like that, not Katrina) and I hit a strip of gravel that had been washed out onto the road; sending me into the guardrail and doing quite a bit of damage to my car. It absolutely scared the living daylight out of me. I just so happened to have "Angles" on the stereo when that happened. After that, I never really wanted to listen to it anymore, just from the association alone.

Like I said, not a long or horribly tragic story, but that thought just stuck with me today. Music is such a powerful thing.

Are there any albums, pieces, groups that evoke so strong an association/memory/emotion like this? (It doesn't really have to be sad, it can be happy too!)

 

[eljr]

Like I said, not a long or horribly tragic story, but that thought just stuck with me today. Music is such a powerful thing.

The power of association is strong and has served us well in out evolution as a species. It is all encompassing in our lives and not restricted to music. In other words it's not the music that is powerful, it's the power of association that is powerful.

Sorry about your accident, glad you are alright. A similar thing happened to me. I was receiving a treatment, the Ludovico technique, to be percise and now I can't listen to Beethoven's 9th symphony, 4th movement without becoming violently ill.

Are there any albums, pieces, groups that evoke so strong an association/memory/emotion like this?

too your greater point, there are tons of albums that I associate with both good and bad memories.

 

[grillebilly]

There are a few songs that remind me of love lost or love gone bad, but those songs I never liked anyway. The other one did. Maybe that's one reason they didn't hang out long.

 

[Dennis Gardner]

My youngest brother had the same affect with the song Spinning Wheel from BS&T. It didn't occur what happened until he would cry uncontrollably when the song came on the radio. It was then that my Dad realized that 8 track tape was playing when they slid off the road and into a highway marker right on the passenger door where my 4 year old brother was sitting. This bothered him for years. Odd how our minds connects the dots.....sometimes unknown to our conscious thoughts.