Music, at its essence, is what gives us memories. And the longer a song has existed in our lives, the more memories we have of it - Stevie Wonder
This week's Friday Fun is exactly about this: music and memories. Let's talk about the soundtrack of your life. Are there albums or songs you associate a story with? Unforgettable memories forever connected to a special piece of music? Maybe music that changed your life?
The one who asks is the one who has to confess first... this is the soundtrack of my life: (Although this would be much nicer with album covers, I will not add any of these images here, because of copyright reasons. You can easily find them online.)
- "Fade to Grey" by "Visage" - this is the first record I bought by myself. I listened to this song for weeks, again and again and one more time. I'm sure, my parents went crazy. I loved the song, I still love it. My teenage years are the 80s (now, you can guess, how old I am...)
- The 80s music was not too bad, but there were really strange pieces of music, especially in Germany. We listened to music we called "Neue Deutsche Welle" - most of this music is long forgotten and that's good... It was silly music with really crazy lyrics in German. Maybe you know "99 Red Ballons" - this came out of this "Neue Deutsche Welle" it was the biggest hit performed by Nena - but I liked the crazier ones, e.g. "Foyer des Arts" playing "Eine Königin mit Rädern untendran" - a stupid song about a queen on wheels
- another song I listened to for weeks... - But then I discovered the first album of my life: "Our favourite shop" by The Style Council. It was the new band by Paul Weller after he quit The Jam (which I did not like btw). I still remember my fascination when I heard this album for the first time. It opened up a new universe of music for me: Jazzy tunes, trumpets, a little bit of Easy Listening and much more - all this mashed up into one album - the stupid Neue Deutsche Welle was gone. I still love this recording so much after all these years. One of my all-time-favourites.
- Teenage years are years of sorrow and pain
- I've seen the movie "The Wall" in the 80s and I thought, this is exactly what I'm suffering. I was fascinated by the artwork, the theatrical music of Pink Floyd and the idea of building a wall around yourself (and to break it in the end) - luckily it was just an idea... but a fascinating one - I started painting in the style of "The Wall" in these days. - My next personal milestone was the album "Sign of the Times" by Prince. I saw him live on stage in the end-80s and it was the biggest concert I have seen up to that point in my life. Years later, I saw him performing in a small club in Cologne. It was the aftershow and this is by far the most memorizable concert of my life, standing just five meters in front of HIM and he performed until it was no, not 1999, but until dawn.
- My marriage and the opening dance - of course, this is an unforgettable memory. We chose a song, you might not know, if you are not from Germany: "Für mich soll's rote Rosen regnen" - we mashed up two versions of this song, the original one by Hildegard Knef from 1968 (now you might guess, how old I am) and a newer version by Nina Hagen, a German punk singer recorded in 2006.
I could add a lot more, but now it's your turn - what is the soundtrack of your life? I'm so curious. Come on, grab your keyboard and tell us!!
