songs and memory

Another video post.

Do you have songs that take you to specific places and times? There are some songs for me, no matter how ridiculous or cheesy or bad, that will transport me to very specific moments in my life. This song reminds me of around the time this song was popular – I was about 5 or 6. I remember the bedroom in that house in Lombard. I remember the smell and feel of the brown carpet, and the generic cartoon-y pillowcases that my parents still probably have. I remember the twin bed handed down from my sister that I now dutifully slept in, instead of crawling into bed with my parents like I used to. I remember my school uniform hung on my closet door knob, a white shirt with a peter pan collar and a brown, white and yellow plaid jumper, the fabric synthetic and scratchy and thin, so if I poked my pencil through I could make a hole and just massage the fibers back into place. I remember the specific feeling of the space, the air thick with quiet, how it looked in the dark, how hollow the radio sounded as I fell asleep with this song playing. The other song that does this to me? “Part Time Lover” by Stevie Wonder. See, I told you they were bad.

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