Music.
Have you ever heard a song on the radio that you haven’t heard in years, but that you once knew so well you could sing in your sleep? It’s fascinating to me the process in which a song like that comes back to me, note by note, lyric by lyric. I find myself singing along and remembering AS I SING. Whenever that happens, I can’t help but smile to myself at the sensation of knowing as I go.
The songs I remember from my childhood are the ones my parents listened to. I, at the time, was too young to discover anything for myself. This was before I had even been to a Disney movie, and it was long before home videos.
My mother and her best friend used to listen to Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck (who I’ve actually seen in concert as an adult and discovered he has an absolutely amazing voice, much to my surprise), and my dad listened to Chet Atkins. He loved the guitar.
What are your earliest memories of music? Are they memories of your own favorites, or someone else’s?
lindaghill.com 
January 26, 2014 at 12:38 pm
Super post Linda! I have a mash up between nursery rhymes (little noddy man) Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Bach, mozart, frank Sinatra, Ella fitzgerald, Shirley Bassey, Julio Iglesias, ( a phew – a whole lot more of my dads music) Then I went through getting to listen to big sistas musica – which consisted of the gospel variety – Petra, David meece, keith green, Steve Camp (forgotten names) And Depeche mode was my first record I bought myself – Then sista bought me a record by a band called Stryper which was a bit like metal – from where I moved on to metalica and megadeth, the pixies, violent femmes, sisters of mercy intermittently with Diano ross and the supremes and will smith (summer summer summer time – SUMMER TIME! 😦 WAAA I WISH!)- then on and up to everything I could find from the seventies like Uriah and Led zep and ! Now – now I get to listen to the music choices of the teen – which is not bad – not bad at all. (she enjoys similar things to me) but I am still a seventies girl by heart 😀
Always wanted a Harmonica and a guitar – got one when I was 22. My son plays better than I my dear. But I enjoy the harmonica(terrible at it – maybe I will post a vid one day 😉 )
Eventually fell in love with a bass player/lead/drummer (yes the old dude with the seventies beard!)
Well thank you for making me recall and think about a brief breakdown of my musical journey and just HOW much it has affected my life and even my life choices. (spans) Cool topic chickie dee 😀
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January 26, 2014 at 12:39 pm
Oops = that was a bit of a waffle – sorry
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January 26, 2014 at 8:14 pm
My pleasure! That’s exactly what I hoped for – to bring back memories. 🙂
Wow, that’s some broad range! I’m impressed! Thanks very much for sharing your experiences, Belinda 😀
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January 26, 2014 at 2:41 am
My earliest memory of music was listening to “Black Velvet” at the laundromat with my Mom. That seemed to play everytime we went to do laundry, for the short period in which we didn’t have working machines at home.
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January 26, 2014 at 8:27 am
I hope you were dry cleaning anything velvet! Haha. What an appropriate memory. 🙂
I would imagine you think about that time every time you hear the song. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
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January 25, 2014 at 11:40 pm
sweet guitar sounds!
folk music, Ray Charles & Frank Sinatra
play in my earliest memories 🙂
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January 26, 2014 at 8:25 am
I assume you’re talking about the video – glad you enjoyed it! Those early memories really stick, don’t they? And it’s great how the original recordings can take us right back. 🙂
Thank you for sharing them. 🙂
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January 25, 2014 at 11:29 pm
As a teenager during WW2, I listened to the big bands,crooner Bing Crosby, and newcomer Frank Sinatra. Later in life, I worked for a composer who wrote “Riders in the Sky” and a lot of music for tv shows, Disney and John Ford films. The Sons of the Pioneers were at the house a lot singing Western songs. Even later, I worked for Eddie Albert,who, besides being an actor, also made a singing album. There was a lot of music around his house as well.When I hear songs from any of those years, I always start singing along.
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January 26, 2014 at 8:22 am
That’s an interesting musical background! I’ve been through a Sinatra phase myself.
It’s wonderful how music takes you back, isn’t it? 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
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January 25, 2014 at 11:21 pm
Big band music at our house. Jazz–Coltrane, Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald—-and the Beach Boys.
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January 26, 2014 at 8:21 am
It’s fascinating to me the way people’s lives are filled with different music. When you say “at our house” it’s like I can imagine the air there, and the music that accompanied it.
Thanks for sharing, April. 🙂
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January 25, 2014 at 11:19 pm
When I lived with my grandmother it was all classical or stuff from the war era (I still love Glenn Miller), my parents loved a lot of country and stuff from the 60’s & 70’s (hence my love of Marty Robbins). Then when I was allowed to listen to my own music, it was ABBA lol.
But the one song that I hear that always transports me back is Video Killed the Radio Star. I remember being in my high school classroom with some other kids listening to the radio and singing along to that and dreaming… we couldn’t afford a video player.
Great prompt Linda. Thanks 🙂
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January 26, 2014 at 8:19 am
Thank you, Sue, for sharing your experience. 🙂
Abba was a big part of my childhood as well – my dad was into them. I was starting to get into rock, and I was actually beginning to convince him to appreciate it. It’s something I wonder if we’d have had in common had he lived longer.
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January 25, 2014 at 11:15 pm
Music was a big part of our house, too. My parents played a wide range of genres which I’m glad to have been exposed to. When I hear ELO, Jim Croce, Diane Schurr, or Earth, Wind & Fire, I’m immediately six years old and bouncing about in front of giant speakers.
My dad loved to play DJ after dinner, and we would all zone out, dance and sing. Old stuff like Cream and Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald all on LP. What a collection they had. (When they moved to the downsized house, in winter, they stored the records in the attic. No one realized it until August. Oh the pain! LOL) Sometimes, I remember him driving us around the loop of the city, playing music, although that was always modern music, on tape, hehe!
We frequented concerts, too. All kinds. Rock, country, jazz, pop…
My earliest memories of music are “I’ve got a brand new pair of roller skates, you’ve got a brand new key” and “If you want my body, and you think I’m sexy…”on my portable turntable. I think I was three or four. Similarly, my mother and my grandmother and my cousins all went to see Saturday Night Fever, and I recall little me dancing in the aisle. I also remember my mother and my cousin teaching everyone how to do the hustle in our living room for weeks afterward.
My dad’s lost a lot of his hearing, and he reads lips now. His music has moved into steel drums and stayed there. I sent him a Dave Matthews CD for Father’s day and my mother loves it! Last time they came to visit, my mother begged me to play classical music loudly while we made the gnocchi. I complied. She conducted those gnocchi fabulously!
My paternal great-grandmother was an opera singer, but as much as I have been exposed to and attended the opera, I dislike most of it. There are some exquisite arias, but I just don’t like it, which is a quiet shame I carry.
Mark Knopfler is someone no one seems to listen to, until you say, “Remember Dire Straits?” But we’ve loved him a long time.
I’ve been trained to play several instruments, and none of them stuck. I sing. I sing well. I do not SING, ya know?
Oh well, anyway, that’s my blog response to your blog. Sorry, but that was too good a topic 😀
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January 26, 2014 at 8:16 am
No problem at all, I thoroughly enjoyed your comment. Thanks for sharing! 😀
I found an old copy of the soundtrack from Mary Poppins in a box the other day, that I remember listening to when I was about 6. My parents had a wooden swing hanging from the rafters in the basement of our house at the time, and I remember swinging and listening to it. The memories music brings back, eh?
😀
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January 26, 2014 at 8:59 am
Good, thanks. That’s a really sweet memory to have!
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January 26, 2014 at 10:33 am
🙂
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January 25, 2014 at 11:14 pm
Mine wasn’t in English but still I was filled with music and lyrics all my life and lot of them with my favorites.
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January 26, 2014 at 8:11 am
Funny, given the choice these days, I don’t listen to much English music. It doesn’t matter. Life should be filled with music. 🙂
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January 25, 2014 at 11:03 pm
I listened to a whole lot of Johnny Cash as a kid.
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January 25, 2014 at 11:07 pm
So did I, actually. My dad was into country. And Abba. But that didn’t come ’til later.
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January 25, 2014 at 10:54 pm
Music was a big part of home. I remember begging to take piano lessons when I was four. And then I remember listening to a missionary lady who came to our church and talked and played a flute. I was probably only 5 or 6 at the time. I fell in love with the flute and couldn’t wait to play one. I had to wait until I was 10 to get a flute and learn though. I still play both instruments. Music has always been important to me. In fact, I was a vocal major in college until I realized I couldn’t make a living with that since I had no desire to teach.
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January 25, 2014 at 10:56 pm
Wow, how great that your love for the piano and the flute carried through your life from childhood. I would love to have learned how to play the guitar, but … there always seemed to be something more important. So I just listen. I do still have my dad’s old guitars though.
Thanks for sharing that, Pamela. 🙂
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January 25, 2014 at 10:58 pm
I always thought the guitar would be fun. But I didn’t want to cut my long fingernails.
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January 25, 2014 at 11:00 pm
Ha! You’d only have to cut them on one hand. 😉
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January 25, 2014 at 11:01 pm
But then they wouldn’t match. I keep one short so I can text on my iPhone. I’m vain
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January 25, 2014 at 11:06 pm
I guess long nails would get in the way of texting. It’s been too many years since I worried about my nails or dressed up to go to work 😛 I used to though.
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