Songs are memories you can dance with for the rest of your life. They anchor you to some of the most treasured moments which would otherwise be lost with the clutter of age as the distractions and complications of adulthood vie for time and space in your world. Your memories may abandon you over the years, but songs will never leave you standing alone and waiting on the dance floor. However, they will gracefully step aside and slink into the shadows if another song wants to dance. Songs won't get jealous if you become enamored with another, because they know better than you, the world is full of dancers, lovers, and dreamers waiting for their next dance, and you'll be back when you realize music is the closest to forever you'll ever be.
I may not recall all the of the minute details of my life, but I remember the music that scored the events both substantial and seemingly inconsequential along the way. I remember the songs as the bookmarks in time they keep in my heart and soul. I don't remember the specifics of all of the moments in my life, but I remember the songs that accompanied me as I lived them.
I remember American Pie in third grade and the lesson it taught me about how songs that meant business and had something important to say (about music in this case, of course and its march through the decades) couldn’t be restricted by time or confined to a single side of a record. I remember I'm Not In Love by 10cc and its eerie whisper of "Be quiet. Big boys don't cry" in the middle of the night that made me want to cry and crawl under the covers at the same time to hide from its looming dread. I remember the The Joker by Steve Miller Band, and its whimsical refrains and comedic guitar catcall, playing during late night car rides in the country on paper route duty (one of my parents' many jobs to make ends meet), quelling the nervous anxiety I felt riding through the night, delivering news I didn't yet comprehend while the rest of the world slept. I remember Twilight Zone by Golden Earring, the first song I heard in my first real car equipped with an FM radio. This is the first and only memory that surfaces all these years later when this song comes on the car radio. Of course, I ritualistically turn up the volume every time in a nod to the rebellious youth I like to pretend I had. I recall a rare spring Houston day on the cusp of summer, hearing the first notes of Steve Winwood's While You See a Chance waft hypnotically across my high school campus from a passing car radio as two cheerleaders walked past me commenting on their love for this song, oblivious to my presence and our unspoken connection through my silent enjoyment of the same tune, but a personal validation for my taste in music all the same.
These musical memories are only a small random sample of many songs with no apparent connection other than over the years they've asked me to dance, and I willing took their hand and let them lead. And we danced and we continue to dance to the significant and the trivial moments, that when combined have made me who I was, who I am, and who I will be.
The best thing about the dance is everyone is invited regardless of who you are, who you know or what you have. Believing this universal truth, I posed the following question to a select group of individuals from Twitter who've inadvertently contributed on a regular basis to my web page The People On Music, a growing collection of music-themed tweets I gather to illustrate and celebrate the tightly woven, unbroken thread of music running through us all and linking us together, regardless of our backgrounds and experiences:
What is the first popular or even not so popular song you remember hearing as a kid on the radio, at a live show or on a record, CD, tape or digitally that made a huge impression on you and continues to have the same or bigger effect on you today and why?
The answer to this question was an opportunity for those who contributed, to reflect on the music that first asked them to dance in their youth, danced with them throughout the years, and bookmarked the moments of their lives with songs. Songs are more than music and lyrics. Like the scene below from the classic movie Diner, songs are tangible memories we can keep forever and replay when we need them most.
In response to this question, several everyday people were willing to share their personal stories of how they were introduced to music and how it has remained a vital part of their lives. Two individuals were also kind enough to include their own redentions of their chosen songs with the original. Here are the songs the people have chosen as their life-long dance partners. Find out what these songs mean to each of them, and click on the videos below each story to hear the songs which have become lasting, cherished memories.
@AtticusFinch79
Song: Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles
Why this song remains with you: I think it's Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles. I was so little, but it stuck in my head because my dad would sing it to me every night he was home.
@IamEveryDayPpl
Song: Bad Bad Leroy Brown - Jim Croce
Why this song remains with you: The one that immediately came to mind, the first song I remember knowing all the words to is Delta Dawn. However, my favorite song I remember knowing all the words to is Bad Bad Leroy Brown because that song (along with Delta Dawn) was learned in the back seat of the car as a small kid,
and it's where I learned I could cuss and not get in trouble if it's in a song. I never felt cooler than I did saying "baddest man in the whole damn town."
@TheTweetOfBob
Song: Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin
Why this song remains with you: I was around eight years old lying alone in the darkness of my own bedroom. The radio was on to mask the terrifying sounds of a sleeping house that seem to only come out and magnify in the imagination of an eight-year-old child who is the only soul in the house awake in middle of the night. In this era before cable TV, the Internet, and cell phones, the radio was serving its intended purpose. That is, until Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin came blaring out of my tiny radio in a sensory overload of audio fury and dominance - contorted guitar fuzz and whine, electrical feedback, sirens wailing, buzz saw reverb like some unseen force intermittingly pressing down on the record, toying with its forward progress to delay the song’s ending. There was bestial howling and what I’d later in life recognize as erotic moans, all against a backdrop of a primal, rhythmic drumbeat and culminating in a blood curdling, descending scream that sounded like it came from a woman falling or being pushed down a well. The scream was then only answered by the audio chaos that proceeded it.
Hearing Whole Lotta Love was the moment when I realized music was more than just peripheral background noise on a radio. It could be visceral. It taught me music was a voice from the great beyond that could speak to you in frightening, yet appealing ways. It could be simultaneously jarring and enticing. Whole Lotta Love was my rock and roll awakening. To this day, that first explosion of chords and everything that follows takes me back to my initiation into the spell that can be cast by rock and roll, or any music really.
@MAB1013
Song: Rock Around the Clock - Bill Haley and the Comets
Why this song remains with you: The very first song I remember falling in love with is the first track on the American Graffiti soundtrack; (We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock. As a kid, it was easy to pick up the lyrics, and let’s face it, it’s just peppy and fun!
I have my dad’s album, and there is nothing that brings back memories of
sitting cross legged on shag carpet, listening to music with him like the scratch of the needle on vinyl.
For an extra bonus, you can listen to Morgan's wonderful, acoustic cover of Rock Around the Clock below.
@DevilryFun
Song: Fame - David Bowie
Why this song remains with you: I was 12 years old, walking through a carnival on a hot summer day and heard:
Fame, Fame, Fame,
Fame, fame, fame,
Fame, fame, fame, fame
Fame, fame, fame, fame
Fame, fame, fame
Fame, what’s your name
I’ve always felt like I woke up to music that day. I had never heard David Bowie, but the voice and lyrics were like stardust from that day on.
@Kryzazy
Song: Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
Why this song remains with you: So, I really had to give this one a lot of thought. Music has been my entire life since I was born. I come from a musical family and grew up listening to everything from Patsy Cline to Roy Orbison.... to Elvis. But this album. Michael Jackson’s Thriller was the first album that was ever mine. Given to me. To mold my own musical repertoire.
I have heard this song a million times throughout my life and it never fails to make me happy.
For an added bonus, you can click here to listen to Kryzazy's (Krystacular) very own, fantastic, stripped down cover of Billie Jean.
@distracted_monk
Song: Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) - Pink Floyd
Why this song remains with you: I was living in Maine when I first heard this, so I was probably 4 or 5. I don’t know how I heard it, probably the radio. It sounded like it had come from a machine, but in a good way. Also, it sounded vast. And kids were singing to me, a kid. This song continues to have meaning today because it’s great and I love The Wall.
I love to lie on the floor at night and listen to records. Pink Floyd is heavy in my rotation. The song also has meaning because I work with mentally disturbed youth and the lyrics are always a good reminder of where they’re at, and where adults who work with them often go wrong and alienate them. Also, as a maker of music, it’s good to hear how well mixed Floyd records are, far less up front and aggressive than music today. The music makes you come to it, instead of jumping off the speaker like a rattlesnake.
@funnyhix
Song: Need You Tonight - INXS
Why this song remains with you: Many many many years ago... before CDs... I shared a bedroom with my sister. We would listen to Caseys Kasem's (OMG totally dates me) Long-Distance Dedication and various countdowns. Well, we had also come to the realization that you could tape over a previous work if you put tape over the ends on the physical tape. We were listening to INXS and my sister was taping this particular song. When he sings "I've got to let you know" at the end, the deejay popped in with "WHAT?" Then the song finished with "You're one of my kind." To this day, I listen for the "WHAT?"
@WhaJoTalkinBout
Song: You Never Even Called Me by My Name - David Allen Coe
Why this song remains with you: Music was my childhood. The Beatles wanted to hold my hand as my mom made dinner. Don McLean with his pink carnation and a pickup truck while looking out the window on road trips with Daddy. Everybody cut Footloose when my sisters and I had to clean our rooms.
I don't have a memory, even in adulthood, that doesn't have a song attached to it, lingering in the background, catalogued like an album of my life.
I don't think it's surprising that my earliest childhood memory of music would be a Christmas song. I know someone will probably write me letter and tell me that David Allan Coe's You Never Even Called Me by My Name is not the most perfect Christmas song because it doesn't say anything at all about Santa, sleighs, snow or presents, but maybe a little about getting drunk. This was my Papaw's favorite song, and after he passed when I was little, the whole family gathered around the Christmas tree to sing it, because it was all we could do to keep from crying. And we have ever since. Loudly. Joyfully. Lovingly. It's not just about remembering him, music ties people together. Past and present, living or resting, any age, and any genre. And, I'm obliged to share it with y'all, my earliest music memory goes like this:
@soyourelikethat
Song: Homeward Bound - Simon and Garfunkel
Why this song remains with you: This song was an integral part of my childhood. My parents were not really into music, but my mother really was into playing her Simon and Garfunkel albums and turned me onto their voices and kept me wanting to hear more my whole girlhood. Though the one she owned was not this version, but the concert happening years after, I first fell in love with their melodies and found solace inside of their comforting sound. It is a great reminder of how many people loved them and came to gather at a great show in the greatest city of them all.
@girlnarly
Song: Happy Together - The Turtles
Why this song remains with you: I distinctly don’t remember much about living in California as a four-year-old. There are some Ghostbuster toy memories for sure, and a werewolf I imagined living in the aloe bush in the front yard. There’s also a blurry recollection of my once-happy little family dancing to records in the living room. We had one of those huge '80s "state-of-the-art" stereo systems with a remote control the size of a small skateboard. Dad worked a lot then. I wasn’t as friendly with him back then because I wasn’t use to his face like I was with my sister and mom, but when he would scoop me up and put my hand in his and we’d rock back and forth to the Turtles' So Happy Together, it was the epitome of living in the moment. Nothing else mattered but us dancing in the living room. To this day, I have to blast that song like it’s hard rock and shout, "I can’t see me lovin’ nobody but you– for all my liiiife!"
@Bob_Janke
Song: Anarchy in the UK - Sex Pistols
Why this song remains with you: I suppose it probably seems cliché now, I was probably 13? Or somewhere around that age I guess, but all I remember was hearing this in some movie with Clint Howard of all people, and it was like lightning. I was like, "Wow! What is that?" It just sort of hit me I guess and I ran out and bought the album as soon as I could. Maybe the "go against the grain" part of my personality was already there and this just sparked it.
@musicntats
Song: Smile - Nat King Cole
Why this song remains with you: When I was little, my dad used to pick up my sisters and me on the weekends, and we'd go on road trips with him... and when your parents are divorced, you cherish every second you get to spend with the absent parent. My dad is a musician, he plays the guitar and sings. He taught us from a young age to appreciate all music.
I will never forget the first time I heard Smile by Nat King Cole. Daddy played it in the car and it struck me. I was almost five, and every lyric filled my mind. I think it was the first time I lived a song. I heard the song many times after that and continue listening to it at least once every day. The song had a big impact on me as a child. It taught me that a smile can just take everything away, that there's always another day, that life is always worth living; imagine getting all of that from a song and learning that all you gotta do to is SMILE.
As a child, it was a cute thing to learn. As I kept growing up, I continued keeping the same frame of mind. As an adult, I have tried to teach my kids the same concept, and I find myself smiling a lot. In the best of times, but also the bad...through tears, through pain, through sorrow. At some point, someone told me it was bad to smile all the time, but I find it freeing, liberating... especially in the worst of times. I find it brings me back to that moment when I was five, when that song took over me and I lived it... and when your soul feels the music, you enjoy the ride.
@Birdhumms
Song: Girls Just Want To Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper
Why this song remains with you: The song that springs to mind is Girls Just Want to Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper released in 1983. I was "almost" a teenager and played the song on the jukebox every lunchtime. I was full of excitement about life, loving every second. I'd sing it as though it were an anthem to the desire I felt to be free from the authority of school teachers and parents. When I play the song now, it still makes me smile and reminds me of the carefree spirit I have somewhere still inside.
@JKickinit30
Song: Yellow Ledbetter - Pearl Jam
Why this song remains with you: I can’t really say that I have a song that made a huge impression on me till I was a teenager. Music was mostly background music when I was younger, until I went to my first Pearl Jam concert where I got to meet Eddie Vedder by chance. That’s when music changed for me. It was like a light bulb was switched on. Here’s the song that transports me back.
scott_i_think
Song: Hey Jude - The Beatles
Why this song remains with you: My first memorable song was Hey Jude. I was 3 years old and my parents got the 45 and would play it on the old console stereo in the small apartment we lived in. I loved it immediately. Perhaps it was because the "na na na na-na na na" refrain was so easy for a young child to latch onto and sing along with. Even though I could barely reach the turntable, I learned to play that 45 until I almost wore it out. I fell in love with The Beatles because of that song and never fell out of love with them. Every time I hear the song, I go back to that small apartment and the old stereo console. A fond memory indeed!
@underchilde
Song: Iron Man - Black Sabbath
Why this song remains with you: I grew up in a small town with parents who only listened to music you’d hear on the Grand Ole Opry and the three major TV networks (and PBS) to keep me busy on rainy days. When MTV came on, it opened me up to tons of music that I, as a 10-year-old, had never heard before. Friday nights, I’d stay up late, because there was no school and watch videos. This predates Headbangers Ball, but they still showed videos that weren’t exactly Top 40 hits. The two songs that made me sit up and pay attention to music were Paranoid and Iron Man by Black Sabbath. I had no idea, of course, that those songs were a decade old. I just knew they were heavy and dark. I was a huge fan of the dark; I was already well on my way to becoming a die-hard horror movie fanatic. As a kid raised mostly on Ernest Tubb and Roy Acuff, who was dragged to church every Sunday to sing hymns, it made me feel a little roguish and devious. They still do. And I love that about them.
@hergoodness
Song: I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor
Why this song remains with you: The first time I heard Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive, I was awestruck! I played that song over and over. Hairbrush in hand, standing in my bed. Singing and performing my heart out! I loved everything about it. It was crushing and hopeful all at the same time.
I Will Survive was her story of heartbreak and moving on. I was probably only 9 years old, and though I didn’t fully realize it at the time, that song taught me I’d always be able to share a little piece of myself through music. And I do. It’s one of my most favorite things, sharing music with people I adore.
@jctwritesstuff
Song: Bad Reputation - Joan Jett
Why this song remains with you: Music has played a huge part in my life since I could barely walk. The radio was always blaring. Records always spinning. My mother says I danced before I walked. I still do.
We all feel it deeply. Music can bring people together, make your soul weep, force you to get on your feet and shake your ass. And sometimes? Sometimes it's stars colliding for that one perfect moment of kismet.
Growing up, my teachers would constantly complain to my parents that I talked too much. Whatever. One particular day in second grade, my mother was giving me yet another lecture about being unruly, and when she finished, Joan Jett picked that very moment in the silence to shout that she, "Don't give a damn 'bout my reputation."
My little 7-year-old eyes widened. My mom tried not to smile. I threw my hands in the air and jumped up and down. I twirled, I danced, I pumped my tiny fists in the air. "Me too!" I shouted. "I don't give a damn about my bad reputation," I sang. "Oh no, not me!"
My mom cracked up, shook her head, and then we danced and sang and laughed until we couldn't breathe. From that day forward, I didn't want to be a teacher or a doctor or a Dallas Cowboys' cheerleader. I wanted to be Joan Jett. I still do.
If you enjoyed reading the stories of those who opened up and shared some of their most intimate dances with music and the place certain songs hold in their lives and in their hearts, you can click on their photos beside their song selections to access their Twitter pages and read more of their 140-character genius, wit, and wisdom. You can also visit "The People on Music" page for more of their reflections on music and what it means to them.
If you would like to read more articles by Bob Langham, click here.