Term 5

You Love this, so much



Music and the Summer.

Today, while supervising my 6th form students in study time, I was rocking ‘Everything all the Time’ by Band Of Horses. This is a record I totally rinsed this time last year just before my trip to ATP to see their first UK show. There was a bunch of other stuff going on in my life at that time, and it’s been one of those situations where the sound of a record brings back memories, feelings, and an almost subconscious awareness of how it felt to be me a year ago.

It’s an age old observation, but one I’ve always been fascinated with, records that become fused to times, places, events and emotions in our own lives. Around the same time, I was hammering ‘We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank,’ by Modest Mouse, ‘Nebraska’ by Springsteen, The last Micah P Hinson full length, and they have become inherent to that period in my life; to the point where I lost interest and stopped playing them, and when I did spin them, they bored me, but today, something struck that chord that brought it all back… maybe the break was what I needed? Maybe I merely needed to detach myself from the events that shaped me a year ago?

The records are always part of an emotionally and mentally turbulent time it seems too; Break Ups, Falling in Love, the loss of a loved one, stressful and transitional times at work or while studying, and this really blows my mind. It seems as if our minds, senses and memory functions are working over time at these points to significantly remember trivial things that accompanied the events. Why?

I tend to find that I learn the most when I’m passionate about something, be it positively or negatively, willing or not; I take the most on the long run, from situations that make me address my conduct, my life, my efforts, my relationships and the things that continue to help me move forward.

Does the soundtrack to these events help us to remember? Does is put emphasis on the important times? Does it help us be philosophical, logical and objective? Does it merely remind us to be so?

Whatever really, whether it’s Band of Horses, The Smiths, Azure Ray or Old Man Gloom, they are truly that records that have helped define and emphasize memorable points in my life, as well as kick the massive ass. Amazing.