They say smell is the strongest sense tied to memory. I'd say that holds up for most people, the grilled corn taking you back to the fair when you were a kid, the smell of moth balls reminding you of your grandparents' house, or a waft of the same perfume your 2nd grade teacher wore transplanting you back to the hard wooden chairs of her class. For me though, music is a much stronger nostalgia.
From cross-country road trips with my family bound for my dad's new duty stations outfitted with his CD case of Hootie and Aerosmith and the Bosstones to fill the radio silence between pee stops for the kids (and mum), to my current daunting library of tunes supplemented further still by the endless stream of internet radio, I've grown up with a steady wave of music pumped into my head, each song serving as a soundtrack for that particular moment. And as such they remain.
My family visited Disney World when I was 7 or so. It was a fun excursion to accompany a visit to the grandparents. We rode the rides, saw the characters, took the pictures, and--much to the bane of my similarly impatient dad--stood in the long lines. I'm sure we had a great time, barraged by happiness all day while mom and dad drowned us in sunscreen with great obsequiousness and carried us whenever our spoiled feet got a little tired, it must've been great! But I don't remember any of that.
What I do remember is the soundtrack. One song in particular. "All For You" by Sister Hazel. It was playing over the speakers, probably during one of our snack breaks in the shade. I didn't know the song or the band but I knew I liked it. And I remembered the words. For years. Even a decade later, once I was deep in the clutches of music's hostage, I still had the song in my head.
One day, then in my adolescence, I was spurred to find the song. So I typed those lasting lyrics of the chorus into the constant bail-out, google, and found it. There it was after 10 years of hibernation in my head. The same catchy guitar and vocal harmonies bringing me back instantly to the blissful humidity and human-herding of the happiest place on earth, hundreds of miles away and an entire childhood ago. As I listened, I could even recall details of that day that I didn't know I had noticed. I could see the part of the park we were resting by. I could remember looking up to the speaker to find the source of the wonderful new music and seeing the grey box atop a tall telephone pole, painted in bird shit. That's strong recollection. Let's see the olfactory lobe do that.
As I write this, I'm having a coffee in a cafe in Dresden after sleeping through class due to a late night of drinking in Germany's ever-open bars. (Come on, America, 2am closing time? Step it up.) The Red Hot Chili Pepper's "Scar Tissue" is playing on the radio. Everyone loves that song: the clean reverb of Johnny Frusciante's guitar, the always-bitchin bass of Flea, and Anthony Kiedis's vocals that it took you 5 listen-throughs to finally figure what the hell he was saying ("Went to bed with Janice a lonely dude," something, something "birds" and "you," what the hell?)
But once again I was taken back. This time to a park in Brisbane, Australia. I was around 10 years old and It was a Sunday and we were there for our weekly cookout with the neighbors. We had arrived early and we're waiting in the car for the others to show up and it came on the radio, still being a relatively new hit at the time. I've heard the song a thousand time since then, but that moment will always be my association with the song.
That's what music does. It makes you feel something; remember something. Maybe it's a work out mix, or the song that was playing when you finally got that girl to sleep with you, or that song that you put on repeat for your last road trip. But whatever it is, it's a soundtrack, and all the bands are playing just for you. And the exciting thing is you don't know it as it's happening. You might hate Iggy's "Fancy" now, but in 15 years when it comes on the radio of your office building on a depressingly labelled "oldies" station, I bet you'll smile. Music is a time machine. So you can keep your grilled corn, I'll be hanging out with Eddie Vedder in the Dolorian.