stumbled on this somehow apt entry I wrote on on old blog, which I reproduce for your amusement:
“Sticky Fingers” (The Rolling Stones)
Memory is a strangely beautiful thing. When one catches a whiff of an odor which evokes an intensely personal memory, unspooling like Proust's famous 'novelette' (sic), one is transported to a particular node in the space-time continuum.
Listening to a favorite song is different. For instance, last night I listened on iPod to Can't You Hear me Knocking, from the Stones album Sticky Fingers. I've probably heard that song more times than the Canadian National Anthem, the U.S. National Anthem and the Simpson's Theme song all put together. However, it isn't associated with any one event, or mood, or even time of my life. I played the vinyl version (album sleeve came complete with working zipper from Mr. Warhol, I believe) when I was a child in rural Ontario; when I was a snot-nosed teen in Texas; when Honoria and I met every Saturday morning to work on what eventually became the drawings for Chios (she did the drawings, I just was a model/collaborator/editor); when I was an interminable college student, drinking wine with my drinking buddy Trey; etc.
Nothing particularly specific from any of these times burbled to the top when I listened last night, yet all were somehow present, woven in the weave.
This is not to gloss over the dimensions of a particular moment being linked to a specific tune; obviously that happens (for me, hearing Richard Thompson's Small Town Romance LP still reminds me of moping, post-breakup, with glass of Bushmills, on my porch on 35th St. in Austin for days and days and endless days. I even broke my rule of never playing the same album twice in row: by many multiples). However, this is not, for me at least, the norm. More frequently, songs have multiple anchor points in the slipstream, especially songs that are part of my pantheon.
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addendum, 8/2007
I can listen to a song I love thousands of times, but films are different. I was so enthralled with Ikuru recently, I purchased a copy. Will I watch it again this year? Next year? How many times? I also bought some Max Roach albums, I'll probably listen to them a dozen times each before the years first snowfall.
My point in all this meandering fluff? Thanks for all the fish.
Top Artists for the week ending 26 Aug 2007
John Cale, Alpha Blondy, Fugs, The Carter Family, Nico, The Meters, Bob Dylan, Gram Parsons, Cowboy Junkies, The Kinks,
via http://www.last.fm/user/swanksalot/
