Songs and albums that remind me of people, places and things.

My short list of memorable favorites.

Apr 05, 2023

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Thank-you, Dave.

Music is the soundtracks to our lives. Hearing a song again, one you haven't heard in many years, immediately takes you right back to a time when you listened to that song nearly everyday. To list every song that means something to me, would be impossible. I would be writing forever. Some songs remind me of my childhood while others remind me of my teenage years. Other songs remind me of girls I once knew or places I've been. I have been very lucky to grow up in a time when the pop music culture has long since become the staple in our lives as it has woven itself into the fabrics of Americana. Here are some of my favorite memories.

I knew a girl many years ago. She and I were drinking buddies. We hung out as friends. She smoked and got high, a lot. We rarely argued or fought, but when we did, and she got in one of her moods, no one was safe. I remember one night when she and I went downtown, I picked her up in my Firebird and we headed out. I had the radio on and a new song came on. It was "Little miss can't be wrong" from the Spin Doctors. I will never forget her saying, "Turn it up! This song is about me!". Our friendship only lasted a few years. She went her way and I went mine. Carol died nearly two years ago. I think about her often.

In the middle 1960's, my aunt Kathy babysat me and my younger brother. We would walk to get ice cream or go to the zoo. I don't remember if she carried a small transistor radio or if it was when we listened to her 45's in her bedroom at my grandmother's house, but "Day tripper" from the Beatles, will always remind me of that time.

Every time I hear a song from the Grand Illusion album from Styx, it reminds me of my best friend, Curt. When I was about 15 years old, Curt and I hung out at his house a lot. He had a nice stereo in his room, so we listened to records all the time. One of the albums we listened to the most was the Grand Illusion, especially, "Fooling yourself" and "Come sail away". I played air guitar and he played air keyboards.

Going back to the 1960's. The Beach boys song, "Good vibrations" will always remind me of the neighborhood we lived in when I was about seven years old. Every time I hear that song, I remember the long summers as a kid, playing in the front yard with the other kids around the neighborhood. It was probably the happiest time of my early childhood.

I was about fourteen years old when I discovered Led Zeppelin. I had been taking guitar lessons for about a year. I heard a really long song on the radio. It was an epic story that made little sense to a teenager, but the guitar parts were really cool. I asked my guitar teacher to show me how to play the song. He asked me if I was up for the challenge, and I said, "yes!" So, we embarked on our challenge to get me to learn how to play "Stairway to heaven". It took about two years for me to learn all of the rhythm guitar and bass guitar parts. I never did learn the guitar solo.

When I got my first cassette tape recorder in 1977, I only had a few tapes. My aunt Kathy had a nice stereo and a lot of record albums. One afternoon, she took me and my siblings to Southridge mall in Greendale, Wisconsin, to go shopping. We stopped in the record store and pursued the new albums. I had just enough money to buy one blank cassette tape. She bought the brand new Barry Manilow album, "Even now". I liked all of Manilow's music from hearing it on the radio all the time in the 1970's. This album had the disco hit, "Copacabana" on it. I asked her to record the album onto my new cassette. She stopped by our house a few days later and gave me the tape. I was just happy to have anything new to listen to. "Even now" is one of my favorite albums because of the memories tied to it, and because it is really good music.

Going back to my early days of learning how to play the guitar. My best friend, Mark and I started taking lessons at the same time, in 1976. A few months into lessons. Mark and I often got together at his house. We sat on the floor of his bedroom with our guitars and showed each other what we learned. I'm pretty sure Mark was the one who introduced the Eagles music to me. "Take it easy" and "Lyin' eyes" were all over the radio after the release of their greatest hits album. I learned the chords to take it easy and Mark learned "Witchy woman". It was a healthy competition that benefited both of us.

In 1984, I turned twenty-one years old. That was a monumental year for me. Not only did I move out of my parents house a few months later, I also purchased a brand new Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle. It was quickly becoming a legendary bike with it's speed and power. It looked like it was doing 150 mph standing still. Because of its name, the Ninja was known as the "Warrior". I loved that bike. It just so happens that a pop rock band named Scandal released a song that same year called "The Warrior". That was my song. That song will always be about me and my super fast motorcycle.

Anyone who knows me from when I was a kid, knows that one of the main reasons I started playing the guitar was because of Peter Frampton. When his 1976 release, "Frampton Comes Alive!" came out, it opened up a whole new world of appreciation for rock guitar music. I wanted to be the next Peter Frampton. Every song on that double album means something special to me. I have played that album a couple thousand times, if not more. I've never grown tired of listening to it. That album was indeed the catalyst for me to become a guitarist. That's where it all began.

My buddies and I used to do a two-week camping vacation every July, at Peninsula state park in Door County, Wisconsin. Our annual trip started forty years ago this year. 1983, was the start of our first ventures camping without parental supervision. This annual trip was something we looked forward to every year. 1986 stands out the most as far as music was concerned. There was one band in particular that we listened to all summer long. The Outfield - "Play deep" album was released the year before, but it really didn't take on as much of a meaning as it did the following summer when we went camping that year. We listened to that album nearly every day for several months.

There was another song that came out in 1984, but it didn't really mean anything to me until a few years later. In 1986, I met a girl from Illinois while we were camping in Door County. Her name was Michelle. This particular song came on the radio one night while we were all sitting around the campfire getting drunk, and for whatever reason, that song stuck, and it reminded me of her. The next day, we were all down by the beach listening to the radio, and that song came on again. Just as it started, I saw Michelle walking over to us in her bikini and sunglasses. That song was immediately solidified as her song. "Boys of summer" from Don Henley carried a lot of memories of that summer. "We" were the boys of summer who were no longer boys. We were young dudes balancing on the precipice of manhood. We could feel the changes in the air, and that life was about to get a bit more complicated and a lot more interesting for all of us. Michelle was the girl in the song and we were the boys of summer of 1986.

One of my absolute favorite jazz fusion songs from the late 1970's, is a song that reminds me of the metropolis of Chicago. It reminds me of the massive tri-state tollway and how many millions of vehicles travel on it every year. It reminds me of the tallest buildings in the concrete jungles of the downtown Loop. Maybe all of this is because of my visit to Chicago on a field trip in High school, and when I heard this song one night on a jazz station. "Westchester lady" from Bob James is one of the most colorfully theatrical songs from that era. The fast-paced, organized chaos of the massive city has always been one of my favorite places to see. This song is that city, to me.

If I listen to the old songs from the 1950's, I know them because my parents listened to them. One song will always remind me of my old man, when I was a little boy. He would have his poker buddies from work come over, and the stereo in the living room would be playing a Statler Brothers record. "Counting flowers" will always remind me of him. Maybe one time, I heard him sing it in the car and it stuck with me all these years.

Speaking of my old man...he used to be able to get vacation time at Fence Lake Resort in Minocqua, Wisconsin, through Johnson Wax. We went up to the resort sometime around 1969 -1970. That was our first time. The second time was in 1977, when I was 14 years old. A familiar song came on the car radio. My old man told us about how when we got to the resort, we were going to be only about an hour away from Lake Superior. This was the infamous lake in the song. We listened to the song and imagined the horror of the massive storm that would sink one of the largest iron ships ever built. And so, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", will always be the song to remind us of all the men who died that night in November 1975.

And lastly...

"Steely Dan - Aja". This is my all time favorite album. It is the soundtrack for a period of time in high school when I was growing as an instrumentalist. I had just started playing the bass guitar in the jazz band in school. What better album to practice too? "Aja" means more to me than any other album in my collection, because it is a milestone record that represents the beginning stages of my development as a musician. It changed the way I understood and appreciated music.

As a musician, a guitar player…in the past 47 years, I have learned how to play thousands of songs. I honestly do not have a clue as to how many songs I actually know how to play. I don't mean to sound like I'm bragging, I'm just proud of myself for being a walking jukebox. So many songs mean so many things to so many people. Those songs and those meanings are almost always going to be different for everyone. Some people grew up listening to Bob Dylan. I was not one of those people. Ironically, Dylan and I have the same birthday, but that is where my interest stops. It's the same with Jimmy Hendrix. I didn't grow up listening to Hendrix. As a guitar player, I have heard every possible story about how great of a guitar player he was....and I always reply, "...for his time, he was. But, I grew up with Eddie Van Halen."

The music I grew up with was mostly fantastic. So many places, so many people, so many experiences, are enhanced by the memories of the music that was playing at the time. It's just like when I smell Bar-B-Que - it reminds me of camping with the guys. Music triggers those old memories the same way. My catalogue of music is fairly extensive and eclectic, and for good reason. Music has a way of making us feel things we struggle to describe. Maybe a lyric or a melody fits perfect on a day when we are feeling melancholy while we expand our retro mental inventory. Hell, I do it all the time. Thanks for reading.