Prologue: Melodies
Sometimes a certain smell will take me back to when I was young
How come I'm never able to identify where it's coming from?
I'd make a candle out of it if I ever found it
Try to sell it, never sell out of it, I'd probably only sell one
It'd be to my brother, 'cause we have the same nose
Stressed Out by Twenty One Pilots
Senses. The way that our brain connects to the world outside the bony prison of our skull. The input that allows the ancient computer, which is our human mind, to begin its daily computations. Those of us with all 5 senses are often too reliant on the grandmaster, Sight. Visual input makes up much of our day even if we mostly see and not observe. Giga-bytes of data flow straight into the desktop recycle bin to be deleted as space is needed for the constant barrage of information flowing into our control center.
Our brain’s ‘number two’, yes, that is a Star Trek reference, is Scent. Often scents wake up our visually bombarded brain, like a flag being waved to stop and take note. Smoke as a warning of fire or burning food reminding us that we left dinner in the oven. The scent of a newborn as it triggers a need to nurture or produce sustenance. The heady concoction of lust as it entices us towards our lover.
Scent also often communicates straight to the archives of our memory. Demanding that our inter-librarian pull up a specific file. Cinnamon and apples baking in the oven. Pine sap floating on the breeze through the trees. Freshly-cut grass and ozone of a suburban summer. The mix of spices and herbs specific to the cultural recipes passed down through generations of our ancestors. The exact combination of soap and antiperspirant your adolescent self used to keep natural scents under control and the perfumes you used to entice instead.
These scents trigger the opening of a memory file. Sometimes it is clear and crisp, just like a high-definition movie. Other times it is blurry and a bit distorted, maybe even a bit deteriorated, like an old camcorder video. There are times when the only thing available is a grainy still, darkened with age, like an old photograph.
Similarly, Hearing is also a sense with close ties to memory. In the song, Stressed Out, the singer discusses a mystery scent that connects him to memories of his youth and how it is a specific smell that would trigger those same memories for his sibling. In the chorus, he goes on to connect the sound of his mother’s singing and the memory of peacefully drifting off to sleep as a child. Music is a strong memory trigger that transports us back via melodies. Sometimes it is the words, sometimes it is just the notes that open that locked file for us.
In this book, I will be taking you on a journey through my past using music. Some chapters will be a specific memory that a song easily invokes. While others will be stories of the past recalled through melodies and lyrics. It will be a journey through a lifetime lived in two different centuries and on both sides of the ongoing digital revolution. From my parents’ LPs and eight-tracks, through a time of mixed tapes, a combination of radio and cassettes, into the CDs and then digital formats of my adulthood. Please join me and come along for the ride!
Wish we could turn back time
To the good old days
When our mama sang us to sleep
But now we're stressed out
Stressed Out by Twenty One Pilots
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Sounds and hearing. The noise of clattering plates that a caring hand places on the lunch table, distant because it comes through the open window of the house. It is summer, and my grandmother is the one who protects and takes care of me while my parents work. A memory from my childhood, capturing wonderful moments from a summer vacation. The smell of a sandwich that my grandmother brings me to eat while I read a book in the yard. It's wonderful when we can get those memories back in HD format! The others - the bad ones - I don't mind if they're black and white photos from the last century.