Many times a month, year, decade, I find myself asking, “How does that work?” Figuratively, I’m like a dog with its head cocked to one side, as if a different sight-angle would actually improve my comprehension.
Sometimes it will be some small thing that falls outside my skill-set. Like algebra. How, and at what point, do numbers become letters, or vice-versa? Never could get past that. Other times it will be a deep question that requires more than I am equipped to deal with.
One of the questions I think about quite a bit is this: How does a song take you back to a certain place just as sure as if you owned a time machine?
The obvious disclaimer is in effect: If you are a non-music person, can’t relate to music, or (heaven forbid) don’t LIKE music, then you are dismissed. Algebra class is down the hall.
For the rest of us, it’s an amazing phenomenon, the way a song can take you, literally at the speed of sound, to another place. It’s a little like Déjà vu. You can be tooling along in your vehicle, not even particularly listening to the radio, and a song will come on, and suddenly you are transported to your first date with your soul mate, or back at your grandparents house, or wherever that song assigns itself. And quite accurately, it does seem to assign itself. Often, but not always, it will be where you were when you first heard that song. Other instances, it will be a significant time or place. The song decides.
I think, if for no other purpose than this discussion, we should decide on a term for these songs. My beautiful wife Danielle suggests we use “time-warp” songs. I think that’s perfect. Especially since one of my favorite time-warp songs is “Color My World” by Chicago. Our band had just opened a show for Chicago, and Danielle and I were right behind the stage, where the lights and colors filtered through the scrim, and, without getting too mushy, we danced like a couple of prom night kids to that wonderful song. Magic.
A vast majority of my personal time-warp songs have to do with my college days. In Portales, New Mexico, I worked my way through a dreadfully short amount of school at Eastern New Mexico University as an employee at Pizza Hut: the vintage kind with checkered tablecloths and little red candle vases, shag carpet and the best jukebox in history. I think it was a dime per play. If you had a buck, you could monopolize the dinner hour, and at least be assured no one would play “Night Fever or Stayin’ Alive.”
Aside from the scourge of disco, that jukebox was a kingdom unto itself. It had the coolest songs. A guy named Ray came every week and refreshed the records. (Yes, they were 45s.) We guarded it with our lives, because the only time it ever skipped was when the occasional over-beered buffoon tried to intentionally bump it. It kept our dreams alive, that machine! The first manager, cook, or delivery person in the door understood that job No. 1 was to feed the jukebox. So often these days, a song will take me straight back to Portales, to that particular summer. Fleetwood Mac had just released Dreams, Bob Seger had Katmandu that summer, releasing Night Moves that fall. Dave Mason’s We Just Disagree, Peter Frampton’s Comes Alive, Aerosmith’s Toys in the Attic album, and Boz Scagg’s all-time great Silk Degrees collection. All were on our magic jukebox, my time-warp machine.
So, how does that work, after all?
I called a good friend who happens to be both a neurologist and a music fanatic. I asked him if, off the top of his head, he had any theories or even opinions on the subject. His answer was, predictably, way above my pay grade. It had to do with MRIs, glucose and up-to-the minute studies.
The simple answer to our question is not so simple. There are, however, some recent findings that correlate memory with sound, much like the correlation between memory and smell. This in itself is quite intriguing to me. Parts of the brain are in proximity to one another. That seems like a medieval kind of answer, but what do I know?
As opposed to chemistry and physiology, I rather prefer the idea of time and space travel, the ability of the mind to take you to another place, and hopefully a good one. So far, I don’t usually go through music warps to disagreeable places.
They’re almost always accompanied by a smile.
