General Question

janbb's avatar

Is there an album that immediately brings you back to a certain place and time in your life when you hear it?

Asked by janbb (62859points) February 9th, 2009

I just put on Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” and there I was back in Exeter, England in the winter of 1972 wishing “I had a river I could skate away on.” If you do have one, what album/artist is it? Where does it bring you back to in yor life?

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40 Answers

nebule's avatar

yes, quite a few… barry white particularly when i was going out with my first major boyfriend; not nice memories

I’m sure i’ll think of others….

jonsblond's avatar

AC/DC Back in Black takes me back to my college party days.

Bri_L's avatar

With out a doubt, the Say Anything sound track. I was at the stage LLoyd was and people kept calling me and telling me to see the movie because they said he was me. Kinda nice.

GAMBIT's avatar

Yes Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon it came with stickers and I put them on my high school English books. When some of the kids saw them we had an instant conversation and I made friends with a lot of different people.

blondie411's avatar

More like songs or mix cd’s that I have that haven’t been listened to in quite a while, all of a sudden you pop one on and I can tell you exactly what was going on when listening to that song. My friends were the kind to make cd’s based on what we were doing…roadtrip to a new place, must make a mix cd of the popular songs of that month or year.

veneziana's avatar

Endless summer nights…reminds me of my first summer with my boyfriend. He was 17 and I was 18.
A whole new world… Brings me back to our wedding
Blue skies…. Brings me back to china where we adopted our daughter.
Great memories.

May2689's avatar

MTV unplugged acoustic… It brings me back to a road trip my family took to Colorado one winter.

timeand_distance's avatar

Shepherd’s Dog by Iron and Wine makes me think of the first time I did acid and the first spring that I was ever happy. I just got online in the morning to talk to my English friend, drove around, got stoned, worked on homework sometimes, did irresponsible things at night, and repeated it again the next day.

kruger_d's avatar

Leonard Cohen collection, 1994, my last year of collage, especially “Suzanne”.

wundayatta's avatar

Michael Jackson’s Thriller (especialy Billie Jean)
and, like Gambit, Dark Side of the Moon and also, Off the Wall.

Finally, the single “Night Fever” by the Bee Gees or perhaps any other song from Saturday Night Fever.

Reminds me of college and the few years afterwards.

Bluefreedom's avatar

When I was going through Army basic training, I borrowed a copy of U2’s Unforgettable Fire from a friend and I would listen to that over and over and over during my down time. It took my mind off the stress and difficulties I was going through in boot camp.

Nowadays, If I hear any songs from the Unforgettable Fire album, I always think about memories from my basic training days.

bythebay's avatar

Carol King – Tapestry – My Mom
Tony Bennett – Just In Time – My Dad
Frampton Comes Alive = Jr. High
Billy Joel – 52nd Street & Bob Seger – Night Moves = High School
Genesis – We Can’t Dance = Dating my (now) husband.
House at Pooh Corner – Loggins & Messina – Singing to my babies

Don’t you love music?!

susanc's avatar

“Dark Side of the Moon”, my old buddy Ralph and lots of alcohol.

All those BeeGees, painting in my friend Pat’s loft in 1978, five months getting wacked out from the fumes off of the automotive enamel I loved. What was I thinking?

eponymoushipster's avatar

August and Everything After, Counting Crows – junior high

Dig Your Own Hole,The Chemical Brothers – graduating high school

Tigermilk, Belle and Sebastian – moving out on my own

Judi's avatar

Hotel California

laureth's avatar

Bat out of Hell (Meatloaf) is all about Freshman year of college.

The “highlights” of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Phantom of the Opera (soundtrack) got me through the worst breakup ever.

Flood (They Might Be Giants) totally takes me back to a long distance relationship I had with a guy who lived 8 hours away. I used to listen to that on the trips back and forth.

The three good Indigo Girls albums (Indigo Girls, Strange Fire, and Nomads Indians Saints) used to be put in the 3-CD player on random repeat all day long, in college in about 1991. To this day I will know if a song is on one of those, but not which one.

First and Last and Always 9The Sisters of Mercy) played endlessly as I moved out of home and had my first job one summer.

The Rocky Horror Soundtrack is pretty self-explanatory. I used to do that every weekend.

Grisson's avatar

“Blue” (Particularly ‘California’) takes me back to my teenage years in my living room.

Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band takes me back to summers in Colorado.

aprilsimnel's avatar

ABC – The Jackson 5. It’s 1974, and I found this album in a stack in the bedroom. We had just moved to a new flat. I liked the colors of the stage lights in the background on the album cover.

Murmur – R.E.M. It’s 1981 and I’m at Atomic Records on Locust Street, wandering around the shop during lunch period.

Ruby Vroom – Soul Coughing. It’s January 1995, at the old and long gone Tower Records on 66th Street and Broadway. I’ve just moved to NYC a few months earlier, and it’s the first time I can buy something “frivolous”.

Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand – It’s 2004 and hearing this album made me want to go to their 1st US show at a warehouse in Williamsburg, but I was afraid to do so because I thought I was “too old” to go to rock shows. I went. Someone must have wanted me to go, because as a gag I went on Craigslist to see if there was anyone selling tickets to the sold out thing. I found one at face value two hours before showtime! w00t! One of the top 10 of my life!

jbfletcherfan's avatar

Any of the Beatles songs take me back to junior high school.

SuperMouse's avatar

The Tubes Completion Backwards Principle journalism car wash junior year. “This album you are now playing is another example of the completion backwards principle if at all possible, please play both sides in one sitting”

Rush 2112 and Eagles Live 80 smoking pot after school.

Blondesjon's avatar

Abbey Road by the Beatles
Led Zepplin II by Led Zepplin
Workingman’s Dead by the Grateful Dead

These three albums take me back to the days when CDs and CD players first hit the market. My buddy Danny and I were juniors in high school and Danny had just purchased the above three albums, a player, and a bag of ahem “music enhancer.”

We spent hours and hours up in his room, uh, enhanced and listening to those three albums.

To this day if I hear any of those songs my eyes still turn a little red.

queenzboulevard's avatar

When I was like 12 I listened to John Mayer’s Room For Squares on they way to Myrtle Beach, SC. So whenever I hear songs from that CD it makes me think of sleeping in the car on the way there.

asmonet's avatar

Okay, really retarded…

BillieHoney To The B

I can’t help but feel like I’m twelve again. There’s more but that sprung to mind first.

chyna's avatar

So many of these bring back my own memories. Love these kind of questions.

cdwccrn's avatar

When I was in high school, the door bell rang and a boy I barely knew, was on the porch with a gift for me. He came in, visited with me in our living room for a while and left me with Carol King’s Tapestry album. I treasure the memory and the music- never did get asked out by that young man. Go figure.

tiffyandthewall's avatar

anything by matchbook romance. i can’t really listen to them anymore.
it’s kind of funny how they broke up around the same time as when i stopped needing to listen to them to fall asleep.

jonsblond's avatar

Beastie Boys Licensed to Ill reminds me of senior skip day 1987 in Red Rock Canyon, NV.

even though I was only a sophmore

chevelle's avatar

Tragically Hip – Up to Here; 2nd year university frosh week; still can’t listen to that album without getting the urge to drink a beer.

timeand_distance's avatar

I’d like to change my answer to the clockwork orange soundtrack and it reminds me of november.
was listening to it today earlier and thought of this question.

augustlan's avatar

The Long Run – The Eagles
The happiest time of my life up ‘til that point…I was 14 or 15.

mcbealer's avatar

Guns N’ Roses’ debut album, Appetite for Destruction (high school)

my discovery of DMB in 1999, which started when I stumbled upon Listener Supported 9/11/99 on PBS, and then completely being unable to listen to anything other than
Live at Luther College for 4 months straight.

sdeutsch's avatar

My freshman year of college, there were about a dozen albums that we listened to over and over and over in our drafting studio – hearing any one of them immediately takes me back to memories of all-nighters at the drafting table and living off snickers bars and cans of pepsi from the vending machines down the hall…

My favorites:

Joshua Tree – U2
Automatic for the People – REM
Fumbling Towards Ecstacy – Sarah McLaughlin
Graceland – Paul Simon
The Inevitable – Squirrel Nut Zippers

Ahhh, the memories…

jonsblond's avatar

@sdeutsch I saw U2’s Joshua Tree tour, it was awesome! As everyone was leaving the stadium, the entire parking lot was singing “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”. Great memory.

Judi's avatar

Free Bird always takes me back to my first husbands funeral. He always said it was his theme song and we played it at his funeral.

sdeutsch's avatar

@jonsblond I wish I had seen that – Joshua Tree is by far my favorite U2 album! It’s one of those albums that I listen to when I’m feeling totally overwhelmed, and it makes everything better – probably because it brings back so many good memories…

Bri_L's avatar

@jonsblond
@sdeutsch

I am so with you both on that!!!

jonsblond's avatar

@sdeutsch
@Bri_L
I’m wearing the concert t-shirt right now. It’s one of my sleep shirts :)

sdeutsch's avatar

@jonsblond I’m so jealous! :)

SherlockPoems's avatar

so many but the one that really takes me to another time and place is The Righteous Brothers, “Unchained Melody”... and thanks for the memories janbb! Hugs

Pandora's avatar

This one. My first crush. link
Donna Summers, I love to love you baby.

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