13 Apr Memory is a funny thing

In the Friday Listening Booth:

Thunder Road Edition

There are some songs it seems like you’ve heard a million times. They are as much a part of you and all your memories as anything you’ve ever known. They communicate to you in a way that nothing else in your life does.

And sometimes you’ll find yourself mindlessly listening to them in the background as if they mean nothing at all. They’re just a part of your story because they’ve always been a part of it.

But then, one day, you’ll happen across a version of that same song you’ve heard and loved a million times and it will all be different.

You’ll listen to that opening lyric as if for the first time all over again and the brush will cast a color across the texture of that well-worn canvas and brilliant flashes of color will energize the experience for you all over again.

You’ll remember the story.

Your heart will ache for the place you came from.

And you’ll remember.

Achingly familiar, yet all new

In a flash, you’ll be standing in the spot where you first heard the song. A familiar smell will waft through your olfactory memory as you listen to the opening notes or closing chord and you’ll be transported to a very specific time and place you haven’t even thought of for a long, long time.

Maybe you don’t know who Mary is. Maybe you’ve never found redemption beneath the dirty hood of a ’57 Chevy Bel Air. But you know this story. You’ve lived it – or parts of it. The imagery is familiar and thick and filled with people you’ve known your whole life. And you remember who you were, who you are and where you always wanted to go.

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