The newest Hold Steady album will forever remind me of empty houses.
My pal Seth recently mentioned that as he was loading some old Metallica into his iPod, he was struck with strong memories from our childhood.
I know exactly what he means. I’m sure that everyone has music that hits them this way, songs and albums that just push buttons and send you back, but this happens to me all the time. Virtually every song and album that I’ve ever loved jolts me with vivid memories of certain times and places. I’m not sure about everyone else, but for me, these are VERY specific.
Examples:
“Paul Revere” by the Beastie Boys hits me with being on the school bus, getting screamed at by Sweaty Bettie, our hideously mean driver. I wasn’t even the one playing the damn song too loud.
The entirety of Appetite for Destruction takes me to Charity Morris’s basement, where Scott Hunkus, Randy, Keith and a bunch of other randoms spent every afternoon of sixth grade playing pool and trying to get a glimpse of Charity’s older sister, Candy, in her bedroom. I can never hear “Rocket Queen” and not remember the time we caught a glimpse of Candy in her bikini. Those chicks are probably pigs now, lugging strings of failure children behind them at Wal-Mart every Wednesday between reruns of Guiding Light. But we’ll always have Appetite.
For some reason, “Red Moring Light” by the Kings of Leon reminds me of being at World Market on a billion-degree spring day.
Metallica’s Black Album takes me to TK’s art class, sophomore year, sitting at a table with Jeff Sheets and doing no art whatsoever.
There are a thousand others, but the most powerful of these memories, come from late 1995- early ’96. Airika and I had just moved to Akron, and I was largely a radio-listener then. I think of that little shoebox apartment on East Market every time I hear “Come Down” by Bush, “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” by Smashing Pumpkins, anything on Cracked Rear View by Hootie and the Blowfish, and, for some reason, “One of Us” by Joan Osbourne. These songs remind me of loneliness (no friends), happiness (being on our own, and hey, a Subway right next door!), confusion (18 credits = too many credits to take with a full-time job), and the sewer smell from that horrible McDonalds where I slaved 40 hours a week. These songs remind me of exploring Akron, Airika and I in my shitty K-Car, poking into neighborhoods we shouldn’t have been poking. Also, for some reason, I think of Omar-The-Cat, even though he came later.
And now I have Stay Positive, by the Hold Steady, quickly striking such a chord. I’d been playing this pretty much non-stop as we were gathering our stuff for the move, and I’ve played it pretty much every day since then. Already, I think of our old rickety house in Akron, empty except for a few big Tupperware crates. I’ll think of our ill-advised drive to Minnesota, both of us exhausted from a day of packing and cleaning, my truck stuffed with all of our essential belongings, two dogs, a propane tank (don’t ask), one of us driving till we started the bob-and-weave, then the other taking over until the rumble strips started coming into play. Then pulling up our long driveway, dragging our meager possessions into a giant empty house, both of us (and the dogs) more tired than we’ve ever been. But mostly, it reminds me of two empty houses, one in the past and one in the future. Echoes and unfilled spaces
Stay Positive is a pretty good album, but it will be great in the long run, at least to me, because it will mean something. It’s now more than music. It’s a place and a time and a hundred different feelings.
And thank god it isn’t Joan Osbourne.
