... back to an exact time in your history.
I clicked on a link in Facebook today and it played a song from an upload on YouTube. The song was Unchained Melody by Bobby Hatfield of the Righteous Brothers. I was immediately transported to being 17 years old again and the Vietnam War was going full tilt. I had a boyfriend who was killed in Vietnam. He wasn't my boyfriend when he was killed because I was 17, and I was fickle. I didn't wait for him. Did that make it hurt any less. No, I think it made it hurt more. I'm not silly enough to believe he would have lived if I hadn't broken up with him, but the next few years of knowing many people who lived through and who died in Vietnam made me much more aware of how lonely and deserted the guys who served in-country felt. This song always makes me cry.
Another song instantly takes me back to a Pink Floyd concert at Carter-Finley Stadium on the campus of North Carolina State University. We were young (well relatively young) and we were drinkin', and smokin' and may have consumed a pharmaceutical or two. We were having a good time. We were invincible. For the sake of conversation, I've pared down my vices considerably in the last 30 years or so. The only way I could attend a Pink Floyd concert now is virtually. But this is one of my favorites.
This next song takes me right back to when we first moved from Maryland to North Carolina. It was on the radio all the time. This version was recorded at a fund raising concert in New York right after 9-11, but the original came out in the late 1970's. This is not the best version by "The Ugliest Guys in Rock" but at least it does show why Jagger is so skinny.
I'm obviously not having my memories in any particular order today. This song takes me back to high school. I was such a drama queen. Talk about hormonal teenagers! Geez. I had a lock on moody. And Roy Orbison was my idol. I could sit in my room and play my Orbison 45's and LP's and just cry and cry. Maybe because he made so many songs about crying. Roy Orbison had tremendous vocal range and several people have suggested it was as much as three or four octaves. I don't know, but the end of this song sends chills up my spine. Catch Bruce Springsteen's face at 2:20.
And how could I leave out my favorite group of all time. This is when I fell in love with Justin Hayward, and it's an unrequited love to this day. This song is probably their most famous, but I have virtually every song they have ever recorded. This song immediately transports me to having just graduated from high school and trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life.
This song was actually recorded in 1959, before we moved to New Jersey. I was 11 years old and thought I was so grown up. These brothers had the most amazing vocal harmonies I have ever heard, even to this day. They had so many songs I loved, it was hard to pick just one. But every time I hear the Everly Brothers, I am transported to a simpler time in my life.
My last song is from another duo who did some incredible harmonizing. I loved all of their music when they were together. I never cared much for either when they soloed (with a few exceptions). My brother Joe died in early January a few years back . Joe was very special to me. As a Christmas present to him just before he became ill, we took him and his wife, Martha, to a Simon & Garfunkel concert in Atlanta. The Everly Brothers were on the bill too. Joe and I sat next to each other through the entire concert and sang every word to every song. That is one of my most precious memories, and so Joe, I dedicate this song to you (though it's only Art). I miss you so much.
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