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What music reminds you the most of childhood?


MalaCloudy Black

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I owe a lot of my taste in music to my childhood, and to my dad in particular. He always had a very eclectic mix of music going - the earlier years of my life are marked most by being woken up to go to school or to the babysitter's by my dad, who would typically be blaring something on my parents' massive 80s sound system/stereo. For as much as I dislike him for making my childhood  memories mostly misearble (thanks, drugs!), I do have to admit that a lot of my taste in music is because of him. I'd have never really ventured into funk or soul or heavy metal were it not for his influence in those regards.

This is probably the earliest memory of any music I have. My dad was raised on country music by his dad, and at that time, country music was stuff like Johnny Horton, Johnny Cash, George Jones, Hank Sr., etc. I remember being a wee child, not school age yet, and being woken up to go to the babysitter's house at 7AM. On days where my dad took me, the stereo was always blaring in the living room and 9 times out of 10 it was this song. He had this album, and if it wasn't "A Boy Named Sue", it was "Ring Of Fire". Or "Orange Blossom Special". Or "Folsom Prison Blues". Or "Don't Take Your Guns To Town". All choice songs, but I always got a kick out of the story of a boy who was named Sue. I mean, could you believe it?! He was a boy! And his dad named him Sue! Yo, dawg, that's insane!

FUN FACT: When I got to the age where I could read and had textbooks, my textbooks listed birth/death dates as yyyy-yyyy (1800-1865, for example). Naturally, I took this to mean that "1958-1986" on this album was Johnny Cash's birth and death date. It wasn't until the mid-to-late 90s that I found out he was still alive, courtesy of my grandma and her boyfriend, who saw him in concert and informed me that he was very much still alive.

And this seemed to be the choice of song after my brother was born. Released as a single in 1992, it's about not going near the water. Nah, I'm kidding, it's a metaphor for young love. Of course, as a kid, I had no idea and just remembered "Don't go near the waaaaah-turrrrrr". Listening to it now, oh my god the water is her vagina isn't it. They fell right in (right over their heads), but they didn't go near the water, just as the girl's parent's warned. I'm assuming this means they got to third base, but they never rounded home, right? Anyway, for a couple of years after my brother was born, this seemed to be the song of choice in the mornings while we got ready. Other choice cuts were "She Don't Know She's Beautiful" and "Cadillac Style".

FUN FACT: Wait, is the muddy river her butt? Wait, is this song about butt sex? Nah, I'm kidding. But seriously, this song is about sex, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c5xZFUq04w (Black Sabbath's "Iron Man")

And now for something completely different! This wasn't until later on in our childhood (probably around the time I was 10/my brother was 6) - I never quite figured out why, but I assume it was something to do with the delicate sensibilities of tiny children listening to hard rock. At any rate, this was another top morning jam. Being from a pretty conservative small town in Arkansas, if I ever sang this out loud or mentioned that my dad let me listen to Sabbath - or Queen - or Deep Purple - or Rush - or [HARD ROCK BAND HERE] - I'd get pulled aside and get a lecture from an adult about whatever song I was listening to was secretly about satanism and Freddie Mercury worshipped the devil and "this song's really about drugs!" I always dismissed those claims, but holy shit, as it turns out, practically a lot of the rock songs my parents listened to or let me listen to were in fact definitely about drugs. That's a different tangent, though. 

Iron Man is a dope song though.

FUN FACT: My dad was born and raised in Los Angeles, and was a teenager right around the time Ozzy-era Sabbath was winding down. He got to see them live in one of the last few gigs they did with Ozzy before Dio took over as vocalist. Pretty neat I think. 







So anyway, I have more that I want to post, but I didn't want to do more than three per post. Let's open up the floor: what music did your parents listen to as you grew up? What did you listen to as a kid? Did you find it yourself, or was it something your parents introduced you to? Let's talk about this.

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'Stacy's Mom', 'Ocean Avenue' '1985' and 'Tangled up in me' take me back to being in middle school, staying up and watching The N all night from my fold out couch bed.

 

'Breathe' by Anna Nalick takes me back to using one of my shitty Dollar store walkman radios to find the radio station and show that turned me onto talk radio.

 

 

N'Sync takes me back to being ten when I got my first (and only) CD Player and some CD's. I still have the player and headphones. 

 

'You keep me hanging on' and 'The Safety Dance' take me back to being a small child in this very house, trying to sleep on the living room couch and seeing those late night CD(May have still been cassettes at the time) compilation ads.

Edited by Kirkland
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When I was really young I became interested in my parents' CD player. I asked my dad for a CD to listen to on it and he gave me Sting's greatest hits, which I listened to non-stop.

Turned out my dad gave me it because he totally hated the CD and it was the only CD he was willing to risk being broken by a four year old.

But I still remember all the songs.

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The Australian is about to come out in me. The first song that I remember hearing is a song by an Aussie singer called Billy Thorpe

 

Our roadtrips consisted of a lot of music by a guy name John Williamson, who is still one of my favourite singer songwriters now.

 

I also remember singing Van Morrison's 'MoonDance', and the do-do-do bit of Suite Judy Blue Eyes by Crosbys, Stills, and Nash

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My Dad was into prog, but sadly by the time the 80s came round all his bands had turned into MOR pop bands, so the car was always Collins' Genesis and Mike and the Mechanics. In fairness it wasn't all hateful, but when 'your' bands go naff you aren't supposed to follow them, otherwise I'd still be listening to Stereophonics. Shudder.

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When I was small my father had gotten a brand new video camera, and spent nearly every waking moment that he was around the family playing with it. Even when he was busy doing other things, he'd just put the camera down and let it film the back of his head as he made toast. When our houses burned in 97, we were asleep, we escaped unharmed but unable to grab our possessions, each of us in various states of undress. My dad? Salvaged only his wallet, and with the help of my brother, 4 large cardboard boxes full of vhs tapes he'd shot through my childhood.

My first musical memories (as caught on film.) occurred on a road trip to Wyoming.

Old Rivers - Walter Brennan.

Mr. Custer - Larry Verne.

Little Rosa - Red Sovine.

Before the Next Tear Drop Falls - Freddy Fender.

Save the Last Dance for Me - The Drifters.

Bed of Roses - The Statler Brothers.

and I'm still not certain how he made the drive time play list, but I'm so happy he did.

Pusherman - Curtis Mayfield.
 
When I was 9 I found a Dr. Hook cassette tape on the floor of my school bus, and Queen of the Silver Dollar became my sound track for many many years.
 
 
Edited by Pleatherface
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It's funny you mention Dr. Hook because that was going to be the next one I posted.

My dad had Dr. Hook Revisited on CD, and this was practically the only song that he listened to on it. Sometimes it'd be "Sylvia's Mother" and "Queen of the Silver Dollar", but for the most part, it was just "Cover of the Rolling Stone" and not much else. This was another one of those early childhood "just waking up and dad's listening to his music super loud" songs. I've been on a Dr. Hook kick lately, that's all I've listened to on Pandora and YouTube. Great stuff. Shel Silverstein wrote some pretty good songs, and Dr. Hook did some pretty good covers of them.

FUN FACT: I didn't listen to the full "Revisited" album until I was in my late teens, and that's when I discovered how raunchy a lot of the songs on it were. "Penicillin Penny", "Acapulco Goldie", "Makin' It Natural", etc. If they aren't songs about drugs, they're songs about SEX. Like in "Makin' It Natural", the main character is throwing away all of his drugs because he only needs lovin' from his girl. Or how "Penicillin Penny" is about a girl who gets around and has STDs. I mean, jeez.

I feel like literally all of my "fun facts" are "did you know this song is about drugs and or sex?! SCANDALOUS!" Wow, Cloudy, you think a lot of rock and roll from the 70s and 80s was about drugs and sex? Quite the revelation! You've cracked the code, you old nut!

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If my parents played 'their' music when I was a kid, I never noticed/remembered it. For whatever reason I only first started consciously paying attention to music in 1995 (aged 10), so things like 'Common People' (Pulp), 'In The Summertime' (Shaggy) and 'A Girl Like You' (Edwyn Collins), and so on.

Now that I think of it, I suspect that in the summer of 95 my brother and I were at a holiday club place where they had that kind of music on continual repeat, so that probably explains this particular childhood association.

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