Reminders- Proustian moment #1

I was reading on another lovely blog about finding compilation Cds from relationships past. Kinda like the whole Dickensian thing. And it brought up memories. And I did happen to find a compilation cassette that I made for someone- in the 80s. Early 80s. I know that it's kind of a Nick Hornbyesque thing to discuss compilation tapes- and I have read High Fidelity and all. The book and movie left me kinda cold. Not my favorite of his. I preferred About A Boy, but I digress.

Much like eating a Madeline in tea (for Proust), listening to this tape conjured up all kinds of mental monkeys. And one of the biggest questions was why did I think that inflicting Heat of the Moment on some poor 16 year old schmuck was a good thing? Sadly, Helena, MT wasn't a cool enough town to play The Cure/The Smiths (see earlier post- I can NEVER tell them apart- probably lack of cognitive exposure). We had stoopid FM buttrock. So I used Journey, Asia, Styx, and sadly Golden Earring as my muse. With some Boston. It was a downright revelation when we got MTV (I was about 16) and I saw that there was some really fun stuff out there- and it wasn't shown on Night Flight.

So back to the tape of doom. It also illustrated that my memory for 70/80s song lyrics is rock solid. I can wail away to Babe, or More Than A Feeling (and maybe not hit all of the high notes...) like a pro. Spouse has found this amusing, and has learned Hotel California on the guitar to take advantage of my previously hidden talents. It's kinda scary. I don't remember the words to songs post-high school. Not easily. Makes me wonder how the brain is divided up. Did college take up that much extra space? Yeah- I do remember esoteric nuances from Max Weber (damn him to eternal hells...) and plenty of other intellectually fucked up crap, but where did the music go? Or should I just blame Michael Stipe for singing in such an indeciperable way as to start a trend of muddy vocals?

Anyway, that's enough of a Proustian moment for today. I have Lights by Journey in my head and need to turn on CNN to drown out that big-nosed little monkey.