They're singing our songs.

[mrissa]

My hands smell like lemons, and my house smells like lemon bars. I begin to think I should have cleaned the bathrooms before instead of after doing the baking, so my hands could keep the residual lemon smell more strongly than the residual cleaning product smell. Ah well. (Yes, I'll be washing my hands on more than one occasion and showering. The Nose knows the difference.)

I haven't slipped on many of my schedule items for this crazy week. I didn't make it to the office supply store, so that got stuck on next week's list. I don't have all of the food yet, and the house is not yet cleaned. I haven't talked to Andrew, so I don't know what the deal is for this afternoon, and if he doesn't call in the next half hour, I'm calling him. If I have his folks' new number. Oh dear. Hmm.

All fussing aside, I've been singing "Much madness is divinest sense" to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" all morning and thinking of Michelle. I've heard lots of reference to romantic couples having songs that were "theirs," but I have songs that make me think of my friends for various reasons. Michelle has lots and lots of them, even if you count "the entire works of Emily Dickinson sung to the tune of the Yellow Rose of Texas" as one. (She shares it with her spousal Scott.) Jen The World's Best Lab Partner has a handful, "Mr. Jones and Me" and "Let's Go Back to Bed" or some such, which is entirely inappropriate for our platonic straight-girl friendship except for the one line, "You drink your coffee with sugar and cream, I'll drink my decaf herbal tea," because I lived on herbal tea in college and Jen couldn't have gotten by without her coffee with sugar and cream. Well, creamer. Still. And then there was Anaïs Nin in the next line ("And you can be Henry Miller, and I'll be Anaïs Nin"), and I'd been reading a bit of Nin that year, some of which I read out to Jen when we went to the Coffee Hag and read things to each other. So we would sing that song at each other and laugh at all the ways it wasn't us. Also because of the Hag, Jen has the Crash Test Dummies song with the line, "Afternoons will be measured out with coffee spoons and TS Eliot," because I read her Eliot, too, that year. Oh, and Jen has "Go My Children" or "All Through the Night" or whatever the name of it is, I'll mangle the Welsh if I try to spell it, because whenever I hear it, I hear her voice singing it in my head.

Dammit. I was already missing Michelle and alecaustin more than usual, having heard from them both lately, and now I get to miss Jen without even hearing from her. That doesn't seem fair somehow.

Anyway, what I want to know is, do you have songs for your friends? Do you have "our song" from relationships? Or are songs one thing and people another and nary the twain shall etc.? Do you have songs that are really inappropriate but "belong to" someone anyway?

Back to cleaning.

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Will you be at the Minn-StF pool party later today/tonight?

B

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Music and memory are inextricably intertwined for me; mostly, though, songs don't go with people so much as the emotions from specific memories. Though Jackson Browne's "Fountains of Sorrow" remind me of one fellow, and Bob Dylan's "Jack of Hearts" reminds me of my most intense unrequited love.

The strange thing is, some songs go with characters of stories, but it would be highly inappropriate (not to mention boring) to blather about that here.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Songs go more with events for me. There's a Savage Garden song that's the summer of 1995 or so, and staying out way too late driving around the city in someone's car. There's a Rodgers and Hammerstein showtune that's the sandwichboy singing to me a little drunkenly at a 2am bus stop, when I was nineteen and we were first living together, and always makes me feel the way I felt then.

Okay, then: songs are not people or events for me, but very specific feelings.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Alas but no. I was leaning towards yes, and then I discovered we'd have a houseguest coming in and another out-of-town friend stopping by, and it started to look much less possible.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Why inappropriate?

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Ah, well.

You could bring the house-guest, if he/she is the appropriate sort of house guest.

B

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Gassing on about crap that's never been published in somebody else's space seems dorky even to this usually clueless dork.

Emily Dickinson and important songs

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

You can also sing her poetry to the theme to "Gilligan's Island". :)

For the longest time, I would get incredibly depressed when listening to Sting's "Ghost Story" without knowing why. When Laurie and I finally hooked up--we'd come close several times before but nothing came of it, and in the meantime I got unhappily engaged--I listened to the song again without getting depressed at all but rather a feeling of relief. I realized then that the song had unwittingly reminded me of Laurie, and I was getting so down from it because it told me that I wanted to be with her, and not who I was with.

Now it's our "secret song" together. :)

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I have songs that go with friends... Let's see. One person is musicals. One is Prince's "Purple Rain" soundtrack (which we always listened to while playing Bump 'n' Jump on the Intellivision), and also Howard Jones (because that went with one of their crushes). One is Seal. One is Paul Simon's Graceland album. One is the Lemonheads.

The Welsh song, I think you're talking about "Ar hyd y nos." Pretty, pretty. I love that song. In my church we have some hymns set to it, which on the one hand is nice, but on the other hand is distracting.

[seagrit.livejournal.com]

For the most part, songs and people don't mix in my head at all. Songs are songs, and people are people. But in grade school, Tiffany and I wrote a song "Always" about friendship, and we wrote it on the bus, since we were on the same bus route. I still can sing the chorus of it. So, that song occassionally pops into my head and makes me think of her. Not that I have any clue where she is now, and I'm having a hard time coming up with her last name...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

He might be, but it turns out our other out-of-town friend is spending evening time with us, and we're already making greykev (said houseguest) deal with a herd of people tomorrow night, and he's an introvert. So. Next time.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oops.

I think I have a lot of apologies to write.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"Ar hyd y nos," yes, that. Why is it distracting? Or rather, distracting from what?

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Nah! You're interesting. I've bored people into catatonia, and learned not to let it rip!

[seimaisin.livejournal.com]

I definitely think of friends in terms of music - my best friend will always be Queen's "Somebody To Love", because of the vivid memories of driving around south St. Louis during high school, singing that song at the top of our lungs. More recently, though, she adopted Carbon Leaf's "What About Everything" as her theme song, and now that song reminds me of her every time I hear it.

Most everyone in my life has a song, an artist, or a theme associated with them, though - I tend to live my entire life as music. :)

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Yes, but it doesn't seem to have much to do with how close I am to them. My college bf of 5 years (on and off) is "We may not always be the best of lovers/But if you leave it to me/I think I can see/We'll always be the best of friends". A guy I knew in Houston is a song from Cindy Kallet's first album - he was just someone to hang out with for a while and I haven't been in touch with hiim for over a decade, though he has had a lastng effect in that I met my husband at his house. A college friend of mine has a series of books that reminds me of him. (I haven't read them for a while and am blocking, but I remember there was one.)

But my husband doesn't have a song. Or rather there is one (Like Butter Loves Bread), but I think it's that after living with him for a decade and a half there are so many associations that I'm not reminded of that song unless I'm thinking not so much of him but of specific characteristics of our relationship. If that makes sense.

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

Pearl Jam's "Black" and Peter Gabriel's "Secret World" always remind me of a particular not-particularly-happy affair in graduate school.

"Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," "I Drove All Night," and "I Wanna Be Your Dog" remind me of my friend Suzy's 40th birthday party.

"Celebration" was played ad nauseum at all of our high school dances. Velvet Elvis was the band at our senior prom, though, so "Back Where I Belong" reminds me of that. Anything by Yaz or Depeche Mode reminds me of one of my best friends from high school. And so on. . .

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Daniel and I have two candidates for "our song": the first is "Alice's Restaurant" (which I sang to him on our first date), and the other is Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy" (which I played for him on our second or third date).

Mostly I associate songs with events or states of mind. Hearing Metallica's _...And Justice for All_ album always reminds me of doing calculus homework. (Interestingly, linear algebra required silence, but calculus went best with heavy metal.) And just the other day, I had a very Proustian moment when I was listening to my iPod, and Audioslave's "What You Are" came up on random shuffle. I played that song constantly during my last few months of grad school, and hearing it again made it all come back.

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

Scorched_mirth and I share Sarah McLachlan's "Ice Cream." We had the pianist play it at the wedding while we signed the paperwork. And we share Sandra Boynton's "Snuggle Puppy" with our daughter.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

It's distracting because for me it is so obviously That Lovely Song Which Is Not A Hymn. So I'm trying to have two songs in my head at once, and I'm thinking about Welsh stuff (sigh miss sigh), and generally not being worshipful.

[matastas.livejournal.com]

Short List:

-O.A.R.'s 'That Was A Crazy Game Of Poker' is tied to riding around town with a friend, extremely drunk, laughing like a mental patient and trying to find the next bar.
-Night Ranger's 'Sister Christian' will forever be linked to a particular friend in Pittsburgh. It sucks so bad, he must play it in *every* bar we go to.
-Jewel's 'Jupiter' brings back some rare fond memories of an ex-girlfriend.
-Dixie Chick's 'Sin Wagon' belongs to friends in MD who used to run a karaokee show.

Et cetera. I guess I don't have many 'relationship' songs (just the one, in fact), but just ones tied to happy memories.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Do you know secular words to it, then? Or is just the tune associated that way?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Daniel and I have two candidates for "our song": the first is "Alice's Restaurant" (which I sang to him on our first date)

I love you-plural.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmmm, she said skeptically.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I don't know the secular words to it, no. In my head it goes:

"La la la la
La la la la
all through the night / ar hyd y nos [simultaneously]"

So I guess that counts as the tune being associated.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

Sort of, but not necessarily romantic relationships.

You and I have (in my mind) the entire first-third of the Pearl Jam catalog, and sometimes Counting Crows regardless of when the song came out.

An ex and I sort of had a few BNL songs (except for "The Old Apartment", which makes me think of the disagreement you and I had about the song).

The fiancee and I have "Lovesong" by The Cure, and apparently "Be My Yoko Ono" and "If I Had $1000000".

Jeff and I have the entire Def Leppard album Pyromania. Etc.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, Michelle and I were talking on e-mail about how songs associated with someone don't have to be positively associated with them, or songs they like, or anything. I think of the argument we had over "The Old Apartment," and I also think of how you didn't really like some of the parts of BT's "Bridge" that I like. Those aren't as firmly "yours" as some other things, but the associations are still sometimes there.

And yes, the entire first third of the Pearl Jam catalog is yours. Also an Alice in Chains song. Which makes me feel just so Gen-X-y it's not even funny. Okay, maybe mildly amusing.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

A heartfelt Thank you! for not making my introduction to Minnesota fandom occur while wearing swimtrunks and a smile. 'Though I'm much better about meeting hoards of new people than I used to be.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It is my -- possibly mistaken -- understanding that one is not strictly required to swim at a Minn-Stf pool party. Still, I'm glad I made the right choice for you.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I have songs that bring back the big things about the big ones, and more general ones for scenes or places. In college, there were certain traditional parties on a weekly basis. Wednes was (A) lots of Grateful Dead and Thurs (B) and standing on benches bopping to very different music. Now, music attaches to other life events, or Benni (Green Day, Puddle of Mud,)or things people rec me (SoM, Moulin Rouge.)

You don't use lemons for cleaning?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No. I have lemon Pine-Sol and lemon Pledge, but lemons have nothing to do with cleaning my toilet or other bathroom fixtures (except for the floor).

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

*grin* I was going to blush and say *skim reader* pointing to self but actually mine do. Some sort of orange, I think. Not cleanser though. I mainly wish I could find something for the tub. One of the bath products, although yum in use, has adhered in a means currently beyond my methods.

I am a lousy house person, really. I'll do all sorts of painting scraping crawling about on roofs and under cars; but, I clean only in desperation, or embarrassment. But, I have a living room sinking under the weight of gaming equiptment, and a dining room graced by a bench and weight set instead of a dining room table, and all sorts of other weird things. It's a little less weird than the year we were skating a lot (Ben hockey) and we moved all the furniture upstairs so we could set up a goal and roller blade all winter.

Actually, now that I think of it, that year it was pretty easy to clean.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Your way is not my way. But I think your way rocks at least a little bit.

Do you use a daily spray-on shower/tub cleaner after you're done showering/bathing? I know some people who've had major success with those when their tubs were otherwise intractable.

I clean only in desperation/embarrassment, too, but I get desperate/embarrased every 7-14 days with some things. More frequently for some tasks and less for others, of course.

Petta er til einkanota og..

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

...eg er her i frii. (I need scripts here. Sorry.)I mostly descrine it as techno organic but it has a decided shappy dceadent chic angle because I like fabrics so you'll find velvets, and beads, and shot silk, and free hand painted decorations on the walls too.

Do you use a daily spray-on shower/tub cleaner after you're done showering/bathing?

Oh yes.

(glances innocently at the ceiling.. crosses fingers behind back. Well, in theory, I do.)

Seriously, I think it was the Walnut oil, or the grapeseed. I may try a like as a scrubber and then what you suggested. Thank you. And we may not be that far apart aside from my roaming packs of dogs and seventeen year olds.

Part of this goes back to the grandmother piece. I grew up in a page out of House Beautiful but I loved the gran's houses. The one upper crusty the other very not, both comfy. So it's combination rebellion and emulation with computers, and too many books. But I can't deal with gross dirt either.

I have to scoot now. I'm supposed to be finishing a program planning report, and I'd best do so before the prescription ibuprofen wears off.

Re: Petta er til einkanota og..

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My grandmother's house is a good deal more formal than my mother's, which is a good deal more formal than mine. My mom in some ways serves as intermediary on this point, explaining to Grandma why it's more important for us to have a music room with two pianos in it than to use that room for a dining room.

My Gran's house got more garish as she got older. We didn't quite understand it. Then she had her cataracts removed and took her cordless phone around the house, telling Mother all the colors she could see that she hadn't ever seen before. She thought the brilliant sunny yellows were muted tans and the royal blues were dusty gray-blues. There was awe in her voice as she said, "Oh, honey, the rugs are green."

Re: Petta er til einkanota og..

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

Well I have seven pages of the report done, edited twice, and I just thought of something else on the drive home. Grr.

That last bit you wrote just tugged so at my heart strings. Thank you. That is beautiful writing.

What is wrong with your back, can I ask? A back problem is the most painful thing I have ever been through but mine never hit until I turned forty.

Re: Petta er til einkanota og..

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

What is wrong with my back: when markgritter and I were moving out to California, a deer leapt out of the median and ran headlong into our U-Haul. The moving truck was totalled, and my back was pretty screwed up, too. The women in my family tend towards back problems anyway, for reasons of build, but this is worse.

Re: Petta er til einkanota og..

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

*nod* I see a chiro for a neck injury from an accident when I was 22. Hope this feels better by now.

Re: Petta er til einkanota og..

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It doesn't, but my appointment is in three hours, and I'm pretty sure it will then.