Have you ever thought about how many songs elicit a specific memory for you, whether it's a time, an event or a person? Sometimes those things are latently milling around in your memory, until one day a song from 1995 brings them back into focus.
Personally, it's one of the things that I appreciate most about music; it's like an auditory scrapbook of my life. Today, for instance, I was doing a little Spotify DJ-ing at the office and stumbled upon a playlist entitled "90s Smash Hits". Clearly this looked like a gratifying trip down memory lane, and it didn't disappoint.
Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men reminded me of my first slow dance in seventh grade. Sir Mix a Lot brought back memories of the oddity of several hundred corn-fed kids grinding along at high school dances. New Kids on the Block and Gloria Estefan took me back to my first memories of passionate musical devotion. NSYNC had me giggling over the absurd adolescent idolatry that they inspired. And that's only an abstract snapshot of this afternoon. I could fill a card catalog with memories (even though card catalogs probably no longer exist).
I like to think that when I'm 50 years old, I'll still be going to a Maroon 5 show every few years when they gather the band together for their old man tour. And despite the degradations that time inevitably wreaks on us all, I like to think that I'll still see Adam Levine on stage with fond remembrance of the years, events, and songs gone by.
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