Music is a funny thing. In a moment it can take you back to a person, a situation, a memory of exactly where you were when this tune starting infecting your brain. It can tie events together and memories together in a way that nothing else can (not even smell! Take that you freshly baked sugar cookies that remind me of Grandma's house!). Music can flood you with emotions and inspire you. It makes you pull out that old music medium (or simply do a YouTube Search) and pause your life, for just a moment to allow the past to become the present. In my house, my kids get forced to listen to what Daddy likes because Daddy is the boss. Yes, I realize this isn't a hit Trolls Soundtrack song. Yes, I realize this isn't in Moana. No, I won't stop the music because, damnit, you're gonna love it like I love it. Music is funny in that way too. BECAUSE it is tied to so many X-Factors in your memory and because it links things in ways nothing else can - it means certain things to people that means nothing to others. You love it because you had the experience with it. No-one else will ever understand how that makes you feel. Music is, an entirely independent, yet co-dependent experience. Eternally meaningful to only the listener, but eternally affected by those around at the time as well. Wow. Deep. Way deeper than I needed on a Saturday morning. SMASH MOUTH. You can still find them HERE. The Astro Lounge Disc. Wow. Talk about a flood of memories. Somehow, this resonated with my 1999 self. First thing that comes to my are my friends Tony and Ben. We listened to this record like some folks listen to their preacher. This was our church. We knew every song, every key, every small variation in vocal inflection that Steve Harwell would give us. We knew that the odd numbered tracks were more of our favorites than the even numbered tracks. We played that until my CD broke. Literally it disintegrated.
It was that summer we would go to Lake Powell. I think I spent two to three weeks there. Listening to Smash Mouth. The 4 hour drive was filled with this CD on repeat (on a personal discman with exernal speakers because the car didn't have a CD player mind you). One image permanently fixed into my brain: Riding in the back of the truck towing the boat cruising over the slow rollers of the San Rafael swell in Utah - nothing but sandstone and dirt for miles. With Smash Mouth singing "Road Man". I remember sitting on the shore of the lake, baking in the sun. With Tony and Ben. And Astro Lounge. To pass the time when we weren't in the water or doing crazy hikes or jumping off rocks into the water we read. We read the Anthologies of Calvin and Hobbes. Front to back. Back to front. Until these were in tatters. With Smash Mouth providing the soundtrack. Good lord I love me some Calvin and Hobbes. And Smash Mouth. And I still do-maybe even more than before because so many good things are tied to these tunes now. There is so much comfort in music and the memories you make and relate you. So, in my universe Smash Mouth, Lake Powell and Calvin and Hobbes come colliding together for some of my fondest memories. I can still feel the heat of that summer on the rocks when that record comes on. What records do you have that bring you back?
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