My friend Fred posted some music he had heard back in his high school days--early 80's--and asked the musical question "is memory fonder than reality when it comes to music?" The music of one's youth that is.
I would say it very often is. Back in the late Seventies, I got into and out of the songs that Andy Gibb and the Bee Gees, Donna Suimmer, Evonne Elleman, et al, were sending up the musical charts with. I don't care to listen to that stuff today, although I could enjoy one or two of those songs back then for a short while. And then I felt like the stuff was banal and ubiquitious.
Nowadays, I prefer the rock music from the earlier part of the decade generally.
I'm going to feature three songs over the next couple days from the year 1978, my high school graduation year. I'm only going to pick ones that stil l resonate for me.
Here is Patti Smith-at Number #72 for that year.
It was co-written or written (depending on the source) by Bruce Springsteen, and, to me, sounds better than when I first heard it. In a year dominated by disco acts and and those sappy love songs by Barry Manilow, this one makes for quite a counterpoint. Patti Smith has been called "the godmother of punk", and I gather she has been quoted as saying this particular song, her biggest mainstream seller to date, is commercial s***. To which I say, "Don't be so hard on this one, lady."
For more on Ms. Smith: http://www.pattismith.net/news.html
goodness, in 1977 -78 I listened to this, only on the college air fm radio, I was at the U for 1 year, 1977-78, Didn't like the structure!!!! while there...But we had fun chillin' to lots of eclectic stuff, no top 40 ever...
ReplyDeleteHer album 'Horses' was excellent...
Yes I like this music. I think I was influenced by my brothers playing Iron Maiden and Metalica. As a quite a young child I was use to classical music, because my mother and father always had it playing at home. We also had music appreciation at my school, where we would go to the room my Head Mistress had up in the turret of this grande building, the room with its roaring fire, which was sending out its warm glow, was cosiness itself.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the music often ties in with some happening or event in our lives and that can tie us in with some pretty grim stuff we thought was so wonderful. Hahaha, on hearing it many years down the line, we think.............................................................................................................. WHY?
When I was at uni, I remember sitting in the huge mullion window looking out at the snow coming down in the courtyard. The wind was sending the huge flakes twisting and swirling in different directions. In the background Shotokovich Piano concerto 2nd movement, was playing in the background. It was the most magical moment that has never left me. I was studying hard and it was a tough patch, I think that one moment saved the memory of those awkward couple of months for me!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=twy4gaJeLqs
However, much of the other music is fortunate that the memory holds it there because it was pretty grim.;-))))
Yes I like this music, Doug. I think I was influenced by my brothers playing Iron Maiden and Metallica.
ReplyDeleteAs a quite a young child I was use to classical music, because my mother and father always had it playing at home. We also had music appreciation at my school, where we would go to the room my Head Mistress had up in the turret of this grande building, the room with its roaring fire, which was sending out its warm glow, was cosiness itself.
I suppose the music often ties in with some happening, or event in our lives and that can tie us in with some pretty grim stuff we thought was so wonderful. Hahaha, on hearing it many years down the line, we think.............................................................................................................. WHY?
When I was at uni, I remember sitting in the huge mullion window looking out at the snow coming down in the courtyard. The wind was sending the huge flakes twisting and swirling in different directions. In the background, 'Shostakovitch Piano concerto, 2nd movement', was playing in the background. It was the most magical moment that has never left me. I was studying hard and it was a tough patch, I think that one moment saved the memory of those awkward couple of months for me!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=twy4gaJeLqs
However, much of the other music is fortunate that the memory holds it there.;-/
I'm glad I had the chance to be at her concert, last summer near Athens!
ReplyDeleteAnd... I don't know what she has said about her greatest hit, but she did sing it here.
As she also sang "People Have the Power", in a very interesting, "updated - 2008" version.
She's always great!
This was part of my life soundtrack in the early 80s, I was in the Middle East when it was released so I wasn't first off the blocks with this excellent album when it first came out. I caught up with Patti Smith when I was working at and living in a psychiatric hospital in the English midlands between 1984 and 1987. Here Comes the Night reminds me of discos at the staff club and some memorable nights at the asylum. While I was there we organised a Nicaragua Solidarity Night to raise funds for the Sandinista delegation who were in England at the time. This puts the song in a precise historical context for me heady days between the end of the Miners Strike, unemployed action Anti Apartheid Movement and the Chadswell Squat and my move to Coventry which wasto be the most active period of political life to date.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure this song went down as well with the Special Branch as it did with the comrades, a sort of Lilly Marlene of the 80s....great choice Doug.
Structure not one of my big things, Catherine. College-based fm radio was one of the best things about college life---don't know if they even have the impact today now that every kid has an iPod, but students at at Cal-State really did listen and take the eclectic music choices seriously. I had a friend who had a regular show on the air called "Modern Violence with Patrick". He didn't advocate violence,but the music was cutting-edge punk from Britian and the USA, mixed with oddities like John Phillips Sousa marching music!
ReplyDeleteHow great that you got to see Patti Smith prefrom live! I'm glad to hear she still performs "Because the Night". Performers sometimes change their attitudes, as we all do, in choices of music i suppose.
ReplyDeleteSandinista Solidarity Night at the asylum! ... sponsored by The Prince's Trust no doubt ;-)
ReplyDeleteIt's always great to hear how certain music songs and artists bring back memories and actions in people's lives... sounds like heady days indeed, AA. I hope the police squads and the undercover weasels didn't give you too bad a time.
I remember reading about "Lilli Marlene" --it was apparently popular with both British and German forces in World War II--the British having different lyrics. But I was surprised how popular and transcendent that melancholy song was. The biggest American hit early in the our entry to the War was "I'll Be Seeing You".
Your brothers had FINE taste :D
ReplyDeleteYes, thank you, I think so.
ReplyDeleteI checked out some Pattie Smith music online. She seems to be evocative of that time. I love the way fashions do full circle.;-) The song posted here certainly seemed to be the most popular...
My favorite Patti Smith album is Easter from 1978, which contains the classic posted here.
ReplyDeleteI think I've had that feeling myself, Cassandra, as many others probably have had. You hear one song (or a movement from a symphony) and suddenly you are remembering a point in your life that now serves almost as the musical background to some happy, romantic, desperate or sad time.
ReplyDeleteI envy you having such a wide range of music to experience as a young person. I wis we had broader music appreciation in my schools but the best we got was some of the international folk music variety. Good in itself, but not as soulful. ("Waltzing Matilda" and "Mexican Hat Dance" is not quite in the same league with Rachmaninoff piano works.) My mother was fond of lisening to the Strauss Waltzes from time to time. Alas, I grew up bereft of Metallica :-)
Thank you for the link to the Shostakovitch concerto. This was such a contrast from the "Leningrad" symphony movements, which are what I think of when I hear mention of this brilliant artist.
I remember this one, too, and loved it at the time!! It's always interesting how music is intertwined in our lives, sometimes not logically.
ReplyDeleteOdd memory surfaced -- when my father was very ill and in the hospital, on the drive to and from the hospital I often found myself singing El DeBarge's song "I Wonder Who's Kissing Donna Now" -- my mother's name was Dona (only one N because it was short for Donatella). You seldom hear it any more, but when I do it brings back those days of anxiety and yet hope that he would be OK.
You're right, christy. I remember the song "Goodbye, Stranger" by Supertramp reminds me so much of a fun I tried to get in touch with after so many years, and he was lost to his old friends and also his mother as well. The lyrics don't have much to do with the memory of my childhood friend, but ienough of them do to make me remember him after all these years.
ReplyDelete