musical associations

I recently read a blog post about how certain songs reminded the author about certain people, which struck a cord with me. Now I am far from a music aficionado and my taste in music has never been considered hip—not when I was fifteen and not now. But I do associate certain songs or certain artists with certain periods in my life.

The farthest back that I can remember is when I was in fourth grade. Cable TV had just started making inroads into middle class drawing rooms and we didn’t use to watch that much TV those days. Friday nights were however reserved for a weekly countdown show called Philips Top 10, which featured the top 10 Bollywood songs playing that week. I don’t think the producers went through the trouble of conducting an audience poll—it was just a random assortment of songs that they thought were popular. Barring a few which went on to become classics, most of the songs are long-forgotten, as are the movies which they featured in.

Then in seventh grade I came across a really nice album, ‘Yaadein’ by an obscure artist called Saurav. The music was sad, romantic in an old-world way and even a little cheesy, but as a kid just entering his teens, I took to it like a cat to a bowl of milk. I had just discovered that thwarted love or love lost is a much more interesting theme than madly-in-love, and that preference holds to this day. Saurav was just one in that long list of pop-stars who take out an album and are never to be heard of again. That was before the days of Google, so if you wanted to track a public figure there was only so much you can do in the manner of an enquiry. I saved his cassette for quite a few years and listened to it intermittently until the tape began to squeak. It disappeared after I moved out of my parents’ home and went off to college.  

Directly after Saurav, there was briefly fascinated by a pretty ordinary band called Aqua. Ours is a generation which has n’t been raised on radio and our only window Western pop was MTV and Channel V. Foreign music videos had only just begun to enter the Indian market. Along with heavyweights such as Michael Jackson and Backstreet Boys, any average band from the West which cared to make India a part of its marketing strategy was embraced by Indian youngsters. Case in point--the thoroughly annoying song by Aqua “I am a Barbie girl” was a resounding success.

As my taste in music further evolved, I took to Boy zone and subsequently Ronan Keating with an unnatural fervour. How was I to know that most of their best songs were covers. And I thought it was wise of them to stick to covers instead of churning out drivel like Backstreet Boys.

“When you say nothing at all” was our anthem in the tenth grade and we sang it lustily whenever there was no authority within earshot.

In eleventh grade I discovered All India Radio FM service and that was also when a lot of private FM radio stations were launching. Eleventh and twelfth grade is a singularly boring period in one’s student life since it entails staying at home immersed in textbooks for long stretches. One isn’t jaded enough to realize that all that swotting is going to get one nowhere and one still listens to a parent’s entreaties to study. I have FM to thank for making those dreary days a little more bearable. I was also introduced to the Carpenters and my affair with them continues till this day. “Top of the World” is the song I usually belt out on the rare occasions that I am pressed to sing. That, and “Leaving on a Jet Plane” by John Denver.

When I left home and went to Pune to pursue a course in engineering, I was holed up in a depressing hostel building which was located at a sufficient distance from any place that a student would possibly be interested in going. My music collection consisted of a couple of CDs that I had hurriedly put together before going off to hostel. I listened to Jon Bon Jovi a lot in that year more out of compulsion than anything else. Thankfully Bon Jovi’s anthem--his shrill assertion that his life is in fact his life-- was not part of the CD. A friend presented me with a CD of John Denver since I had mentioned to him that I enjoyed country music, and I finally had music that I liked. I would lounge on my bed in my hostel, gazing out of the window at a wall of brown mountains in the distance and listen to Denver croon longingly about his picturesque little red-neck hometown.

If you have John Denver, Glen Campbell can’t be far away. I had heard his most famous “Rhinestone Cowboy” earlier, but I quickly learnt that that wasn’t his best song. I enjoy “Gently on my mind” more and I still listen to ‘True Grit’ when I need a pep talk. I also discovered Frank Sinatra and added ‘Strangers in the Night’ to the list of songs to be sung upon request.

In my final year of engineering college, I was hooked to Bob Dylan. My friend and I would pile into his beat-up  Jeep and go on long drives and, since neither of us are the chatty sorts, I would listen to Bob Dylan on my MP3 player. When I listen it to ‘Man of Constant Sorrow’ it reminds me of that year—drives on Pune’s pot-holed roads, loads of free time, the imminent end to engineering.

I know this has turned into a tedious account of the evolution of my taste in music which is still quite undiscerning. The point, however, is the power of association--these songs remind me of particular periods in my life. I don’t even have to dig out old tracks and play old tracks. I just need to hum a verse and the memories come flooding back. And I have always been a sucker for nostalgia.