Music to my ears

What can trigger a memory? The answer to that is as infinite as the number of memories we all like to keep and think back upon. Sometimes it’s seeing something like an old photograph or a toy you forgot was in the back of your closet or even a favorite sweatshirt you used to wear all the time until all the holes threatened to turn it into rags. Sometimes it’s feeling something like smooth velvet that can remind you of the material of your prom dress or fine powdered sand that instantly brings up memories of the beach. Smell is also another memory trigger and, I believe, one of the stronger ones too. I’ve stumbled across old perfumes that instantly transport me back to the time when I used to wear them and automatically bring up all the memories of that period.

Another great memory trigger is music. How many of us have heard those old favorites we used to enjoy when we were growing up and were instantly brought back to that time in our lives. Who hasn’t associated a song with a loved on or someone you hated? Who hasn’t danced around their room in their underwear to the beats of songs you’d never admit to liking in public but secretly shake your booty too? And even more, who hasn’t listened to a song in times of strong emotion and somehow related to the lyrics? I know I have and I’m sure everyone else has too.

Which brings me to my current point of rumination. This week, as I found myself getting bored with the current selection on my iPod, I decided to put together a new playlist. I decided on an upbeat fun dance mix (yes, I still dance around my room when the feeling hits – and you know you do, too!) and started looking up what I thought were the greatest ‘90s dance songs of all time beginning with, my personal favorite, Vogue by Madonna. Haven’t we all danced to this at some point?

This simple start snowballed into my looking up all my old favorites from my childhood. I was such a dance maniac back then and my best friends and I used to have slumber parties wherein all we did was choreograph dances and perform them for one another in our basements. Sometimes we even went all out and added costumes and makeup I remember some of my favorite dances were to Vogue, New Kids on the Block’s Step by Step, Tiffany’s I Think We’re Alone Now, and my all-time favorite Salt-N-Pepa’s Pump Up the Jam which I did with childhood and lifelong best friend at my 11th birthday party (and which I even have on video tape locked away forever!). I even remember we had a dance marathon at a party, which had us seeing who could dance (and really strenuous dancing at that) the longest non-stop. It lasted for about four hours with me conking out somewhere after three and a half.

Hearing Vogue sent me down ever-reliable memory lane and I started thinking about all the music that characterized my childhood. The strongest influence, of course, is rock (dance songs being reserved for slumber parties and dance-offs), which is still what I love to this day. And being a child of the ‘80s and a fan of AquaNet and four-inch high bangs, I was such a glam rock girl it wasn’t even funny. There are photos from those days I want to burn to cinders and forget about completely but I never will because those were some of the happiest days of my childhood and I always go back to sitting in my best friend Lena’s basement singing Bon Jovi’s Bad Medicine at the top of our lungs whenever I’m feeling sad or lonely. I just love the songs from that era, which is actually why anyone who knows me well knows they can find me at Capone’s on Saturday nights belting out all my timeless favorites with the original and only glam rock band in Manila, NATF. They revive those old songs with originality and finesse and it’s always fun to watch their shows. After all, I can never resist Def Leppard or Bon Jovi or Poison or Mr. Big. As my good friend Brian once put it, "That music brings me back to a time in life when I was just sitting around wondering what I’d do when I grew up."

I’ve already got most of my glam rock favorites I decided to download all my old dance favorites and once I started, I just kept on going. After Vogue I looked for C&C Music Factory’s Everybody Dance Now, Boyz II Men’s Motown Philly, Calloway’s I Wanna Be Rich, Poison by Bel Biv Devoe, Groove is in the Heart by Deee-Lite, and many other embarrassingly similar songs (guess we know who’s going to be dancing around her room these next few weeks). I loved listening to them again and remembering all the humiliating dances we used to do to them, though I’m sure we thought they were cool at the time.

Music brings back so many memories. I guess on a larger scale it makes me think about how I’ve grown or how I’ve changed over the years. They say that the songs you like can vaguely portray who you are. I guess that’s something to think about. Perhaps even more than just triggering memories, music can tell people who you are. Someone once asked me what the soundtrack of my life would sound like, I can’t say specifically since I love so many songs, but I know it would be a plethora of classic and glam rock, timeless dance anthems, some Counting Crows stuff, probably an NKOTB and Ricky Martin song, some old school jazz, a touch of Mozart and Beethoven, and a few of my Broadway favorites.

If you had to think about it, what would your life’s soundtrack include?

* * *

E-mail me at michellekatigbak@gmail.com