A momentary lapse of reason

It’s what familiar songs do to me

I’ve been known to bust a move when any song from the Off the Wall album starts playing.

I find it incredibly hard to drive when my head is thrown back singing along with My Old School at the top of my lungs.

The images below are not of me—I know you find that shocking. I’m actually a much better dancer than these dudes I got off my Freepik.com subscription. But you get the point.

Old jazz standards—and anything Rodgers and Hammerstein—can make wander off away from a conversation looking for a lamppost to lean on or a curb to toe tap.

Friends and readers. This essay is not about music—but rather about what music does to me—and for me. As a youth I learned to play both the piano and guitar. Neither stuck beyond my teenage introduction to sports—and girls—and alcohol—likely in that order. But reading and understanding music has lasted a lifetime. Singing stuck with me the longest. Despite not having done it for more than an audience of one or two for many decades—I still sing every single day. In the car. Around the house. Writing this essay. I know the tune and I mostly know the words to thousands of songs across rock, pop, country, jazz, R&B, and soul. This is often startling to my beautiful wife when—without warning—I bust into a full-throated singalong usually accompanied by a dance move or two.

Those of you that follow me on Notes will notice my occasional posting of lyrics that render me speechless.

Please enjoy as I reflect on a few songs and moments that literally transport me.

---

There is an absolute effect of music on our memories. There have been numerous studies and research on music’s effect on memorization—no need to reference here—the studies have mixed results. Believe me I have a strong opinion that music stimulates both learning and creativity—but I’m no researcher—and we’re all different.

That’s not what I’m referring to here. I’m talking about how just hearing certain songs or artists creates access to very specific memories. For me those memories are extremely quick to surface and highly sensory. The instant the sound wave hits your ear—your CPU slams open the RAM for a quick look and then yanks that deep file from the hard drive. Whoa—there it is. I haven’t heard this song for 15 years and I know every word.

The song Babylon by David Grey will forever remind me of my time in San Francisco. The song has not one thing to do with the city by the Bay—but to me it’s an anchor to a memory. A very visual one. I’m walking my dog Bogart in Bernal Heights Park, and the sun is rising in the east over the Oakland Hills and San Franscisco Bay. Twin Peaks and the Sutro Tower are starting to light up just to the West of me.

Saturday, I'm running wild
And all the lights are changing, red to green

Moving through the crowds
I'm pushing chemicals all rushing in my bloodstream

Netherlands by Dan Fogelberg (RIP) is the reason I moved to Colorado 30+ years ago. Not directly—but indeed subliminally—working on my soul for years until I finally actually stood—

high on this mountain the clouds down below

I’m feeling so strong and alive.

from this rocky perch I continue to search for the wind and the snow and the sky.

Oh I want a lover and I want some friends

And I want to live in the sun and I want to do all the things that I never have done.

Songs and music anchor us to place—to very specific memories. Part of a long life well-lived is to have witnessed decades of album and song releases. The melodies and the lyrics we sing along with effortlessly—despite having not heard the song for many years—bind us to a place and time as roots do a towering tree to its place in the earth.

Yearnin’ Learnin’ by Earth Wind and Fire puts me in my college frat house room with my roomie Andy—bouncing off the walls on a Friday night—ready to hit the scene.

Once upon a time, a child was born

With a light to carry on

Didn't know what he had to be

Had a feelin' he was bound to see

When I hear the soaring guitar and Brad Delp vocals of Boston’s Smokin’ I’m taken immediately to Ritter’s dorm room and his massive floor-to-ceiling Altec speakers.

Every single time I heard Gary Glitter’s infamous—due to his later conviction for pedophilia—song Rock n’ Roll, Part II—I’m taken not to a sports arena—but rather to the live performance I witnessed at NYC’s Limelight Club circa 1983.

Styx and the Guess Who take me back to high school shows—chaperoned by friend’s older brothers.

Jim Croce immediately drops me into Junior High carpool rides.

Tommy James and the Shondell’s hit Crystal Blue Persuasion brings me to my parents basement where a ten-year-old me fronted an air guitar band.

Neil Diamond’s 1970 album Tap Root Manuscript—including Cracklin’ Rosie bring me to the kitchen of my parents’ house—where as a young teenager I witnessed my mother’s one-octave-higher perfect soprano singalong.

The Doobie Brothers and Jackson Browne pin me directly to college relationships.

Jack Johnson drops me on Poipu Beach in Kauai—wait doesn’t he do that to everyone?

Roxanne sung by me and my two brothers from kayaks and rafts along the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho while Police guitarist Andy Summers—with his foldable Martin backpacker guitar—serenaded us down the river from the raft next to us.

Let’s not forget the drunken ballads that resurface the twisted pride I felt as a functioning alcoholic—lyrics written by others that held sway in my own polluted thinking at the time.

I’ll never forget the soulful Adam Duritz singing on Holiday in Spain:

Everybody's gone
They left the television screaming that the radio's on
Someone stole my shoes, but there's a couple of bananas
And a bottle of booze

Or the classic JJ Cale song popularized by both Clapton and Jackson Browne.

Cocaine—running around my brain—

Or the Eagles Life in the Fast Lane surely make you lose your mind—

Or the eponymous One Bourbon, one Scotch, and one Beer—written by blues man Rudolph Toombs and made famous by John Lee Hooker and George Thorogood.

These songs about getting fucked up don’t take me as much to a place as to a state of mind—but they take me there immediately nonetheless.

Of course there are songs that elicit profound gratitude for my recovery as well.

Eric Church singing Holding My Own—

Always been a fighter, scrapper, and a clawer
Used up some luck in lawyers
Like Huck from Tom Sawyer jumped on my raft
And shoved off chasing my dreams
Reeling in big fishes
I had some hits, and a few big misses
I gave 'em hell and got a few stitches
And these days, I show off my scars with

One arm around my baby
One arm around my boys
A heart that's still pretty crazy
And a head that hates the noise
If the world comes knocking
Tell 'em I'm not home
I'm finally holdin' my own

Dave Grohl belting out Learning to Walk Again—

Rascal Flatts crooning Bless the Broken Road—

John Mayer singing Shadow Days—

So many songs from my life that transport me without a car—bus—train—or plane to the exact spot where I once celebrated that song on a meaningful occasion.

The Soundtrack of My Life was a remarkable book written by Clive Davis.

In it, Davis recounts his singular career discovering and launching musicians across many genres, including Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel, Aerosmith, Barry Manilow, Alicia Keys, and Whitney Houston.

Those of us with a little bit of life under our fingernails have witnessed as he and fellow producers and executives like Barry Gordy and George Martin and Chris Blackwell and Jimmy Iovine and Rick Rubin and Babyface and Dr Dre and Jeff Lynne and Brian Eno and Quincy Jones and T-Bone Burnett and Ryan Hadlock and Lloyd Maines—have brought us bands after artists after songs. I’m sure I’m leaving some important ones out—best I could do off the top of my head. I’m a wee bit distracted at the moment by feet bashing into each other under the desk. Mac Miller is in my ear alongside Anderson Paak. I might have to get up—

OK I’m back.

I would be remiss—in fact I’m saving the best for last. There’s simply not one band who has influenced my life more than Donald Fagen and Walter Becker’s Steely Dan. For fifty fucking years since I first saw them at the tender age of 15. The problem with the Dan—and the reason for the light touch above—is that there simply isn’t one song. There’s 100. There’s 200. And what Steely Dan serves up for me is a lifetime of attitude rather than just one memory. Rather than the one sweater you have in the top of the closet that takes you back to Christmas at grandma’s—it’s the single thread of cotton that weaves through every single sweater and shirt and piece of clothing you have—so it’s hard to pick out just one shirt.

There are so many that I’m leaving out. The audio brain bounce happens to me multiple times a day. As Chris Stapleton sings—I’m a traveler.

A final memory to share—it’s one that will not leave my brain. I’m riding in the back seat of my parent’s car—not sure how old I am—but I’m young—six or seven. The radio is on. I’m singing into the rolled-up window—softly so no one can hear me singing along with Petula Clark as she sings her eminent hit Downtown.

It’s a lonely song. Was I a lonely boy? I don’t remember being one. But I’ve never released that memory of that song and my little cheek pressed against the glass.

What songs or artists do it for you? Transport you to a place and time in your life that is unforgettable and anchored to your memory? Share in the comments if you got a minute.

Thanks for reading.