If there's one thing that takes me out of the current world and transports me back in time to relive distant locked-away memories, it's a music compilation. I stumbled across such a compilation only the other day - a folder full of MP3 files, most dated from the mid to late 90's. A lot of it is 'techno', a type of music I was oddly enough quite into. Some is electronic trance and the rest can't really be adequately described. One or two are in German and date back to my visit to Germany in 1995. The fact that they are in German is no handicap to their enjoyment. It's the tune that brings back the memories and unlocks the images of fondly remembered times. For anyone who knows me, it would be hard to imagine that I once hankered after the latest downloads of Torley Wong, Blumchen, Das Modul and Scatman John to name just a few, but I did.
A lot of the music I collected I heard for the first time on MTV's Most Wanted - a programme hosted by Ray Cokes from 1993-1995 gaining cult status among its loyal fans throughout Europe on what was then the first pan-European satellite network. I was pleased to see that Ray Cokes is still broadcasting at 55 and can be found on a small radio station in Belgium.
Each track carries with it its own set of memories, whether sat at my desk in the IT department of Churchill Insurance trying to look busy whilst secretly downloading masses of MP3 files over their super-fast Internet connection, driving my Volvo 760 Estate with newly installed CD auto-changer or hurtling down an autobahn in Germany or touring Berlin in my pen-pal's Volkswagon Golf MKI. These are cherished memories of good times and each MP3 tells its own story with it's own unique set of feelings, images and events from a time gone by.
I imagine there are many who can relate to this and have records, tapes, CD's and MP3's that when played unlock fond memories or perhaps still have the power to produce feelings deep inside - the butterflies, the tingling sensation and the heart-skipping elation. Of course this is all very personal and entirely unique to the person concerned and their own mental libraries of memories and images, images that the camera missed.
Maybe one day we'll be able to retrieve these memories... or perhaps they should stay where they are and remain forever personal.
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Lynda Bellingham
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Music and smells, they are the things that transport me back. Some of my favourites were on tapes which I lost, of course....
ReplyDeleteYou're right. That's what I love about MP3, the fact that it is such a portable format and that making copies is so easy. I do though maintain that some music is best heard on good old vinyl, especially classical as there is a degree of loss with digital. I see that the humble cassette is making a comeback. I am an avid listener to radio plays and shows and used to have a lot on cassette. I too lost a good few when I moved up here but I discovered a wonderful site where I rediscovered everything I had lost - http://radioarchive.cc
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