Time Travel
Time has been the focus of a few of my essays and is an intricate part of my journey. There is significantly more time behind me than before me and I am sure it will be a recurring theme of this blog.
Time is the commodity used to measure the past, present, and future. We cannot get it back, we cannot stop it, we cannot control it. Science fiction writers have promised time machines hundreds of times over. Yet the science behind such machines remains elusive.
But time travel to the past is possible. It is not done via machine or a hopped up DeLorean; you can simply travel back in time with music.
For an afternoon this past week, we did just that. We saw Rock of Ages and I was transported back to high school. Music was the time machine that brought back feelings, thoughts and dreams that had been dormant for decades. For a couple of hours, I was back in my teens, playing hacky sack with long hair and wearing checkered vans like Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I was young. I was thin. I had grand plans, and the music continued.
Song after song took me back to the unbridled optimism of my teenage years. The feeling of freedom, hope and youth; life before illness, insurance, and mortgages. From the first note to the credits I had a stupid grin on my face. It was good old rock and roll fun and a nice way to spend the afternoon.
Songs take you back to your first love, your first record, your youth. It's funny what songs remind you of what. Santa brought me KISS's Love Gun album when I was in third grade. I bet you never thought of "Christine Sixteen" as a Christmas carol. But for me, I hear that music and I travel back and see the album propped up under the scraggly live Christmas tree. I also see my parents in the background with a puzzled look wondering why Santa would do that to them. KISS now reminds me of the naive innocence of parenting.
So my advice to you is get a soundtrack for your life. Fill your iPod with the songs that take you back in time, that make you happy. Fill it with your youth, your optimism, your dreams; keep it alive. Then hop into your DeLorean and ride that music into your future.
Jim is am an attorney and graduate of Gonzaga University and Marquette Law School. He lives in Spring Prairie near Burlington. He has been in private practice for 17 years. He is in the process of closing his practice due to a diagnosis of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He his married with 6 kids. Jim is a community blogger and is not a part of the Gazette staff. His opinion is not necessarily that of the Gazette staff or management.
Jul 23, 2012 at 5:27 p.m.
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There are several songs from my youth that take me back to my youth, most of them being "hair metal" ballads. However, there are other songs that have a very specific memory attached. For example, when our eldest was still an infant, we used to play "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" every night before putting him to bed. I can't remember how that got started, other than it was a song he seemed to really like. So, every time I hear that song nowadays, I immediately picture my wife and I dancing with our first baby.
Wanted...Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi takes me back to long drives going nowhere with a couple close friends.
Cherry Pie by Warrant is associated with a memory of a very specific night in a dorm at UW-Whitewater.
An old buddy of mine spent an entire summer listening to the World Wide Live album by The Scorpions so tracks like Coming Home and No One Like You take me back to those days and nights.
I'll always think of the cafeteria in middle school when I hear Bang Your Head by Quiet Riot as it was played incessantly for some unknown reason.
Songs are indeed a great way to "time travel." Great post.
Jul 23, 2012 at 8:42 a.m.
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So true. Good blog!
Jul 22, 2012 at 8:06 p.m.
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Dan Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne" always makes me reflective about my past, and depressed.
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