Musical Score By... Everyone!

It's usually someone else's words that get stuck in my head and pound my skull until I let them out. This time it was my own.

Two nights ago, I was having a "conversation" with an old friend. (Instant Messenger has replaced actual voice conversations). What I told him was that, "The soundtrack of my life would have been very different had you not been in it." OK, so maybe it was the modified Josephine Baker I was drinking (vanilla vodka, Chambord and orange juice) but I'm not sure what made the statement fall out of my fingers. However, a truer statement may never have been typed. He is a musician, and I spent a lot of time at his shows, listening to his music, dragging every friend I could to a dreary club in San Jose. OK, so I had a bit of a crush on him - but that's the point - those are the songs I listen to even now. The ones that bring back memories of people, places, where I was, what I was doing...

It occurred to me that the songs that I have loaded in Pepe are so eclectic - that there is only one thing that links them together: me. Seriously, I have everything from Anne Murray to Skid Row; Barry Mannilow to Fall Out Boy; Beethoven to Bowling for Soup. These artists have nothing to do with each other, but in all cases I can remember where I was in my life when I heard the songs. This wasn't necessarily the first, 10th or 100th time I heard the song, just the one that stuck. It's where I was when I heard them, not when they were recorded that matters.

For example, I have songs on the Ipod from The Cars. I can't hear anything from them without thinking of another crush from high school - he loved The Cars, and I wanted to impress, so I listened to them too. The same friend called me "Goody Two Shoes" - are you surprised to hear that Adam Ant is on here too? I have "Beautiful" from James Blunt because another friend said the song reminded him of me. I have a song by Quiet Riot because my oldest friend loved them eons ago. I remember the song by Adam Ant, "Desperate but not Serious" because of a very specific road trip with someone I've lost contact with - and no, it wasn't in the 80's.

Here's another strange musical connection. When I walk just to get somewhere, at my usual pace and stride, not for exercise, not a stroll, and not with anyone else I've often found that pace matches the remake version of "All of Me".

So, friends, what songs make up the soundtrack of your life? Why? Not all of you comment here, and that's fine - but I'd love to hear a story of one of the songs in your life. Music has so many amazing powers - it can tell a story perhaps we cannot.