[_mulder_]

Music is like your own personal life-diary that you don't even have to write. Music is such an important trigger for memories (along with smell which is even more powerful but less controllable) but the majority of people seem to take it for granted and make no effort to preserve these memories. It's staggering how hearing a song you haven't heard for 20+ years can immediately put you right back to being a kid, or some other nostalgic memory, even if only fleetingly.

Perhaps I'm overly sensitive to having my music memories overwritten; I've been known to leave clubs or bars or turn off the radio if a particularly personal song is playing because I don't want my original memory to be overwritten. My friends don't understand, to them music is just music and something to dance or shout along to. A handful of songs provoke extremely potent memories in my mind of when I was a kid. Hearing these songs is the only channel I have to experiencing that time of my life. The problem, and half of the beauty of it, is that I don't actually know what the songs are until I hear them. I keep intending to compile a list of which songs trigger these memories.

Infact I, along with most people I imagine, have a whole library of songs that read as mile-posts dotting throughout their life. Perhaps a particular song triggers a memory of a summer holiday, or high school party, or road-trips as a kid, or even just what you listened to whilst coding your first successful project.

The single worst thing that can happen to music is for it to be used for advertising. What may be a catch song to a marketer could be someone's last memory of a dead parent or friend. I commend artists, especially Radiohead, who vehemently forbid their music to be used for anything after it's been released. Thom Yorke (I think) did a great interview on the subject but I can't find it, annoyingly.

[Kronopath]

I've heard that song too many times,

I'll admit it.

It's not that I'm sick of it,

I just fear for its life.

The tunes get a little bit stronger

Every time they are sung,

Or a little more threadbare.

Slowly undone.

— The Fugitives, Slowly Undone

https://soundcloud.com/light-organ/the-fugitives-slowly-undo...

[mercer]

I sometimes put on music I don't really like anymore, just for some late-teen memories, both good and bad. I find it's very therapeutic.

[GotAnyMegadeth]

I avoid listening to new music that I might like when I'm feeling bad, otherwise that music always brings back those feelings.