Of Music and Memories

The other night, I was listening to music while making an exam for my class. I put my iTunes on shuffle mode. I was busy trying to make the most difficult exam ever for my students (just kidding as I actually make easy exams) when my attention was swayed from my academic task. The Abba's Chiquititta was being played at that moment. This is a song from my parents' yesteryears, I thought to myself. I wondered where they were and what they were doing when this song hit the charts in 1979. How do they look like sporting bell-bottom jeans or baggy pants? I wonder if they look funny. I guess I'll have to do a little bit of photo album digging.

Chiquititta's melody faded out. The next song on the shuffle list was Toyang by Eraserheads. A floodgate of memories cracked open. This time, my memories. 1996, high school. I remember singing this song while a record cassette tape was lodged in my car stereo. My classmates and I were taking a break from planting the "immortal" golden duranta saplings and watering our mahogany trees in the school's pocket forest. I have more memories of this part of school than my Calculus and Biochemistry classes combined.

We Built This City. 1986. The floodgate opened wider and took me a little further to the past. This was the time when I was carefree. No school yet and no assignments to make. I was watching a video of this song when a friend of mine was yelling at me to go out of the house and meet up with the barkada. Even as a kid, I loved going out of the house with the neighborhood's gang of kids. We'd sneak up into a nearby sugarcane plantation and because we didn't have the strength to uproot the sugarcane so we could steal them, we would just nibble directly on the sugarcane. I had no idea which neighbors' dog peed on that cane.

Fixing A Broken Heart by Indecent Obsession. 1994. Ah, first year high school. The school year was about to end. A classmate who was good with the guitar got me and my classmates squatting under a tree and singing out loud with a songhits in front of us. This was one of those songs. When our throats started to hurt, my classmates and I would play "syatong." This is such a crazy game which I played with all my heart. One time, I hit the stick so hard it landed on the forehead of my classmate with such a loud thud that I thought it was going to bleed.

Superman by Five for Fighting.... Christmas 2002. I was still with my former employer. I remember I had an officemate who loved this song so much. I gave her a CD with this song in it but because all I could afford at that time was a pirated CD, that's what I gave her. I know, I know. It's not good to support piracy. But I'm sure she'd prefer that rather than me singing it and recording it on a casette tape. Not a bad gift considering that I got a Parker pen in return. It makes me wonder what I could have gotten if I gave her a tape with my own rendition of the song. Probably a Panda or Uni ballpen. Or worse, a used pencil with a chewed eraser head.

David Cook, Always Be My Baby. This is a more recent song. This one's a double memory. These two memories have something to do with the original artist Mariah Carey though. My high school crush was so engrossed with Mariah that I said I liked her songs too. She had no idea that I had to do a bit of research since I had no idea what Mariah's other songs were. The second memory is that of me giving a CD to my bestfriend as a birthday gift. She mentioned in passing that she liked Mariah and I surprised her with it. I guess that as a bestfriend, you need to listen to the little things your friend says once in a while and use it to surprise them.

As Long As it matters by Gin Blossoms. 1998. Aaah, this song is one of my comfort songs from my emo years. Yes, I was an emo once. And no, not the black-shirt, black-jeans, ear-pierced, suicidal emo. I was the normal looking (I hope I was) student who was deep and pensive. One who kept a journal, "digged" poetry, and one who attempted to think about life and my future.

Happy by the Square Heads, 2003. This song started it all. This was to become my baptism song into the night life, booze days, and partying. I was assigned in Iloilo for 3 months where my only form of stress release was to go out with officemates on Saturday nights and party like there was no tomorrow. Actually, there always was a tomorrow. It was a tomorrow of hangover. But with a smile, nonetheless.

As I continued listening to the songs, I realized how amazing it is that we remember not just the lyrics of these songs but also the joys, the pains, our crushes, our bestfriends, our family, and a lot of other memories. Then the playlist jumped to another song that my parents probably slow-danced to when they were younger. It makes me kind of wonder what my kids will think of my songs now. And I wonder what memories they'll have for the songs during their generation. I hope they're as rich and colorful as mine and yours. What are your songs?