Weather was different when we were teenagers, wasn’t it? Winters were snowy and cold, summers were long and hot most years and that was just in the UK. I remember the summer of 1976, when I turned 15, being hot for two and a half months until the August Bank Holiday when it rained apocalyptically.
So certain albums still have a seasonal dimension associated with them because I played them all the time when it was sunny or snowy. I’m sure you’ve got summer albums and winter records that just don’t sound right outside of that context.
It’s funny how it sticks. For example, I got Be Bop Deluxe Live In The Air Age in the summer of ‘79 and that record holds the 18 year-old me’s hopes, dreams and emotions, and everytime I hear it, the sun should be shining. At the time, I walked everywhere and sang this to myself as I did. The girl I was dating lived about 2 miles from my house, and it seems now that I walked there in the sun, every day. Also, that summer saw me going to see cricket at the local cricket club, getting drunk in the afternoon heat.
That summer stands out because it was the summer before I went to college. So a whole slew of records bookmark that period. I was also listening to Black Sabbath’s Greatest Hits, The Doors Absolutely Live, 10CC’s Original Soundtrack, Nutz - Live Cutz, Led Zeppelin III and Lynyrd Skynyrd One More From The Road. Tuesday’s Gone aches with melancholy like the end of a summer love affair. They still feel like summer records.
Conversely, the winters between 1978-82 were really cold and featured snow storms. These periods were dominated for me by Zappa and Todd Rundgren records. When I hear Sheik Yerbouti it should be snowing outside. On New Years’ Eve in 1978, it snowed heavily, and I was touring pubs, walking about three miles in a snowstorm. I had been playing Traffic On The Road a lot and its laid back vibe is still invested with falling snow for me.
As I walked everywhere, getting caught in snowstorms was a common experience. At the time, Walkmans didn’t even exist, so you had to play the records in your head instead. I had one of those snorkel parkas where you could basically disappear from the world into this massive coat. Because I played some records so much, I knew them off by heart and would go on a long walk putting the first side on as I left and playing it all the way through. I used to do that to the entire double album by Thin Lizzy of Live And Dangerous and Zeppelin’s Song Remains The Same. It used to get me through frequent one or two hour walks into town or to The Stockton Arms where we met up to talk about records from the age of 16-18 as indeed we do now that we’re in our 60s. ‘What did you talk about?’ Dawn will say, ‘we just talked about music for two hours’ I say. Knowing that half an hour of that time was dedicated to keyboard hippy and innovator Tim Blake. Of course.
What A Fool Believes is nothing but a late summer evening record. You can hear the cooling temperature after a hot day, as the sun goes down. Am I mad?
Does anyone else do this? It’s largely involuntary. I suspect you have to carry a Proustian sense for things with you at all times to appreciate how certain music is a bookmark in life.
The other side to this is that certain moments in life are forever marked with certain songs.
For example, November Rain by Guns N Roses always evokes checking into our room in Laguna Beach because it was playing at the time. Cinnamon Girl was playing as we drove down Pacific Coast Highway into Malibu. Peaches En Regalia as we drove through the desert towards Las Vegas. All forever markers in time. Going back further, I am forever sitting in my parents front room listening to ‘Inner Mounting Flame' by Mahivishnu Orchestra, and I still can’t listen to it and not be transported back.
Same as Interstellar Overdrive puts me back in my pal Russell’s front room. Albums scattered all over the floor, there’s Argent’s Encore there and Kraan Live and Welcome Back My Friends by ELP and albums by Camel and Nektar. Clear as day. I recall playing air guitar to Supertramp’s Goodbye Stranger with Antony Williams and coming up on mushrooms listening to A Wizard A True Star and smoking dope in my mate Jerry’s bedroom playing a live version of Luna off a promo by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Given how many records I must have listened to, I suppose only a few evoke specific occasions and inevitably most of them are from when you’re at your most impressionable. But some tracks and records are time machines and take you back to a simpler time when you had your whole life ahead of you.
Some records are time machines...
