Daily Prompt: Always Something There to Remind Me

A song comes on the radio and instantly, you’re transported to a different time and place. Which song(s) bring back memories for you and why? Be sure to mention the song, and describe the memory it evokes.

I think about at least 80% of my iTunes library (of 100,000+ tracks) all have different memories for me. So it’s really hard to actually pick a couple of them to focus on…

Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol.

Oh this takes me back to when a little show you may know called Grey’s Anatomy first aired on the telebox. Oh, the drama!! Everybody was sleeping with everybody, and relationships were emotional fucking rollercoasters – full of lingering looks, frustration and so much dramatic music. I’m not going to lie, it was through Grey’s that I first heard this song, and I remember bawling my eyes out in that episode… and so now whenever I hear it, it makes me want to cry.

The Blower’s Daughter – Damien Rice

This little gem, is also another one of those gems that I heard on Grey’s… and subsequently turned myself into an embarrassing blubbering mess. Let’s face it, I’m an ugly crier. Like, ugly!! This is also one of those songs that you know you shouldn’t listen to when you have a big fight with somebody, or break up with somebody… but you just. can’t. help. yourself.

Apotheosis – O’Fortuna

This is something that takes me back to my early days when I was taking Jazz dance lessons, and I remember I saw the Seniors perform a dance troupe to this routine, and I became obsessed with it – both the dancing and the song… Then I remember seeing them perform it at a dance comp. It was incredible. That was when I realised that I wanted to do dance lessons all the time and one day, I’d be able to dance with the seniors!

Throb – Janet Jackson

I remember when I was a kid, I was doing my usual saturday thing (which I previously wrote about) and I was dancing around in the loungeroom, when this video came on. I literally froze for four-and-a-half minutes, literally glued to the TV. I then realised that I had recorded that music video, and then as soon as it was over, I started to watch it, and then learn the dance break at the end of the clip. Yes I was that kid.

Spice Up Your Life – The Spice Girls

Remember these ladies?? Well this just takes me back to high school. My best friend and I were obsessed with the Spice Girls. He was in love with Ginger Spice (Geri) and I wanted to be Sporty Spice (Mel C) (who surprisingly isn’t a lesbian!). I remember when a friend of our, J, got her brand new car, we’d go driving around town pumping the Spice Girls on her little stereo. Oh the bubble car was certainly something…

I Don’t Wanna Wait – Paula Cole

Let’s be honest, raise your hand if you just saw the heading and immediately thought of Dawson’s Creek?? This was perhaps the show of my generation. It was everything. The parallels between that show and my social circle of friends was uncanny – to the point where it just got a bit freaky. Each of us was pretty much a character from the show… I was Pacey, and ended up getting caught in the ‘love triangle’ of Joey / Pacey / Dawson… except in real life, I was more like Jack, and Joey turned out to be a lesbian.

Pure Pleasure Seeker – Moloko

This is one of my absolute favourite songs ever. Every time I hear this song, it takes me back to being in high school, and cruising around with my girlfriend B (well, not as in like boyfriend / girlfriend, more like a girl who was my best friend… and is also now a lesbian!). We were a bit crazy when we were together, and always had the best time with each other. This song always manages to put a massive smile on my face – even when I’m in a really shitty mood, and I love that music has the ability to do that.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/prompt-remind-me/

Daily Prompt: Let’s Dance

In my earliest memories of dancing, I’m under my auntie Nancy’s dining room table, (which had been pushed off to the side of the room), watching my mom, dad, aunties, and uncles all dancing on the hardwood floor to a never-ending stack of 45 records, dropping one after the other. I remember foot-high stacks of 45s all around the record player. The song that I remember playing most? Twistin’ the Night Away by Sam Cooke. Every time I hear that song, I remember auntie’s spontaneous dance parties. What are your earliest and fondest memories of dance?

 

My earliest memories of dancing, are of me as a child. There isn’t one that stands out on it’s own, however, I just remember that most of the time when I was a little kid, if I wasn’t outside playing, I was inside dancing. I distinctly remember when I discovered music video shows like Video Hits or Rage and seeing music videos for the first time, and I would bounce and twirl around the lounge room like an idiot. As I got older, that became a staple of my weekends. I would usually be awake on a saturday morning at 6am in time to watch the following 4-5hours of cartoons, and then after that, I’d spend another 3-4hours watching music videos. It got to a point where I couldn’t stay over anybody’s house on a Friday night if it meant I couldn’t watch Video Hits the next morning (unless we were playing video games, then I really didn’t care).

I remember a couple of times I slept over at a friends place, and they didn’t have a games console, so I got mum to set up the VCR to records a full three-hour video of music videos, and then when I got home, I’d spend the afternoon watching that. Sometimes, if for some reason it wasn’t on, I’d pop the same video in and watch it again – I clearly didn’t mind.

Music and dance became a very important part of my life from a very, very young age, and even to this day, they are just as (if not more) important to me.

I also have memories of when I was a little kid, and I got a Cabbage Patch Kids tape player. I’m pretty sure that the first album I got on cassette was by The Bangles, and some friends of mine would come over, or I’d take my tape over to their place, and we’d put on the music and dance around the bedroom, or the living room, and lip-sync our little hearts out, putting on ‘concerts’ for whoever would care enough to pay us any attention.

Now that I think about it, I realise that I was perhaps one of the campest children in the history of… well, ever purely because of that fact. I LOOOOVED The Bangles. I think I kept that tape on repeat, until one day it got stuck in the tape player and had to be cut out. I remember when that happened, and I cried and cried and cried because my mum couldn’t buy the tape anywhere.

I remember when I was a bit older, probably about 7 or 8, and I got Paula Abduls album ‘Shut Up And Dance, and I had been doing private Jazz lessons at a local dance school. We had been working on a routine to one of the songs on that album, and I was so obsessed with it. I think that was the next cassette that I kept on repeat. It was also the first album that introduced me to the sound of ‘remixes’ and I recall being completely fascinated with how they could take a song, and make it sound so different.

Ah, the innocence of youth!

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/prompt-dance/