a musical meme, so i'll do it....

[acroyear]

List five "marker songs" that match periods or events in your life -- good and/or bad, and the events that they match. They don't necessarily have to be life-changing moments; they can just be markers of times and or places that made you feel happy or sad.

Well, for me many of these aren't "songs" but there you go...

1. Ommadawn, Mike Oldfield, the whole album.
   
   Though it came out when I was 5, to my memory there has never been a moment where this album was not a fundemental part of my life and my listening.
   
2. Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd, the whole album
   
   The first time I heard this as a young adult changed my life permanently.  Someone read a history-of-Floyd paper in school, near the end of my sophmore year,  but couldn't rig up a box to play the tunes.  Curious, I went home and went digging and pulled out my dad's 8-track of that album (which he taped in 1972 off the on-ship radio of the U.S.S. Saratoga, while returning home from 'Nam duty).
   
   A sizeable amount of my "dweebness" gave way to a whole new form of geek.  I stopped getting my hair cut regularly, I got into my "jeans are the only pants" lifestyle, joined the "60s revival" crowd in school, yada yada.  I started defining my appearance and attitudes on my own terms instead of any social norm I thought was worth matching (and yet I could never succeed in fitting into).
   
   And I gave up on 80s pop music 'cause it really started to suck after that.  Went from Floyd to Clapton/Cream/Doors blues-rock, and finally to progressive rock (Yes, ELP) as I slowly rediscovered all that I used to listen to from my father's collection back when I was between 3 and 9.
   
3. This Frog, Kermit the Frog / Jim Henson
   
   Not one of the most popular songs of the Sesame Street era (it *rarely* shows up on CD compilations), but probably Henson's finest performance, even more so than Being Green or Rainbow Connection.  Saw this when I was 7 and it drove in me the most postitive feeling I'd ever had.  I had no idea music could be that powerful.
   
4. Down Under, Men at Work
   
   Not exclusive, more representative of 1982, my first summer with MTV, and many long afternoons of watching videos with first my cousin, then later friends from my suburb.  Other songs from that era that invoke the same memories/feelings include "I Ran", "Don't Stop Beleiving", "Shake it Up" (the Cars), "Centerfold", "Ebony and Ivory", "Get Lucky" (Loverboy), and "Our House" (Madness).
   
5. Stravinsky, Rite of Spring
   
   In high school, I would be the page-turner for my organist for the postludes, as she would play really fascinating, complex organ pieces (she adored Bach), and I prided myself at being able to keep up with reading the music and turning the page without her needing to cue.
   
   Well, one day off, I gave myself a mental test of just how well I could read music.  I walked, through the snow, to the George Mason Library, to the 2nd floor (the music library).  I pulled out the complete conductor's score and the LP (up to that point, I had only heard the Fantasia abbreviated version of it).  Plopped on the headphones and just listened, following along, just to prove I could read the score well enough on a piece of music that fast and complex and keep up.
   

'cause I can't just stop at 5

Honorable mentions:

6. Chess, original cast/concept album
   
   Cami St. Germain (Dee Dee of the O'Danny Girls) introduced this to me some 19 years ago.  One afternoon I will never forget, we basically sang through the entire thing (well, until my voice gave out trying to hit the high notes of "Pity the Child").
7. Farrell O'Gara, Kevin Burke
   
   From Arlo Guthrie's Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys.  The first celtic tune I ever heard, when I was 3, though I wouldn't understand the significance of it for 20 years...
8. The Chain, Fleetwood Mac
   
   If there's any song that sums up the Shelby side of my family, this is it. Every family reunion we have, rare as they are, has this song running through my head.
   
9. Hearts of Olden Glory, Runrig
   
   The song that defined my feeling of "making it" when in Scotland in 2000.  faireraven can attest.
   
10. Made in Heaven, Big Country; Take Away my Pain, Dream Theater
    
    A couple on the sad side, the songs that guided my mourning of the death of my mom's mother in 1998.
    

Comments

[thatliardiego.livejournal.com]

Re #4: I found an acoustic version of Colin Hay singing "Overkill" off of Men At Work's second album. That guy has one heck of a voice.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

you can find it here. I heard that on the radio a couple of years ago; the whole album is fantastic.

[jmthane.livejournal.com]

...and finally to progressive rock (Yes, ELP)...

And anyone that has a problem with ELP can take it up with me, too. I discovered ELP in 1981/2 (whenever the ELP in Concert movie came out) and was completely blown away by it.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

oh, I have plenty of "problems" with ELP, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying their music.

(in fact, just yesterday i discovered that yet another melody i thought was theirs turned out to be ripped from a classical piece).

bombast and pretensions be damned, they had their moments. "Pirates" is one of the finest pieces of music, lyrically and melodically, of the late 20th century. If presented as a "Sonata for Baritone and Hammond", rather than as a rock piece with orchestra, it would sit well with the classical standards.

[jmthane.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, "Pirates" is brilliant. And yeah, they filched many of their themes from classical (I didn't know that about "Touch and Go" either, because I've never heard the original RVW piece). Should they have credited more when they used a theme in a piece? Yeah, maybe. But hopefully some people who listened to them said "Damn - that's cool! What's the original sound like?" I know that was me when I heard "Mars" (also from the ELPowell album). Bloody brilliant, and it got me to purchased a recording of Holst's "The Planets Suite". (Montreal Symphony, Charles Dutoit conducting, for the record. My first records of "Planets", and still my favorite.)

Bottom line for me, though, whether they credited the bits they used in their songs or no, what they did with them is still brilliant. (And ASCAP can still perch and twirl...)

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

my personal first and only was Bernstein / NYPO, but my dad had the Tomita electronic version on vinyl.

Actually by having EL(P) do Mars it meant that Lake was repeating himself: Mars was a common track for King Crimson's 69 live show, though the studio recording ("Devil's Triangle") in 1970 didn't have Lake (he'd left the group though he sang a couple of tracks as a session man) nor did they credit Holst (it was financial decision made by management as Mars was still under copyright, and Fripp has gone on the record as regretting it; the track was properly credited in the Epitaph boxed set).

Here in Fairfax, Woodson High School's marching band my senior year (I was at rival Robinson) marched on the field to Mars and Jupiter (yes, they marched in 5/4). It was pretty impressive.