There’s a couple different ways (that I can think of offhand) that this could be taken. Feel free to run in either direction!
A. From a “story” perspective.
(How a song became permanently associated with a memory)
B. From a “musician’s” (or historical) perspective.
(When technology changed the popular landscape, or a ‘natural evolution’ [read as: generational shift] occurred.)
I’ll kick it off with an example of each!
I was coming back from a friend’s house (in high school), and living at “the edge of civilization” means driving on “unpaved” roads. instead, they spread oil, and then drop fresh rock/gravel onto the surface, and it takes time for that to “become one” with the preexisting road surface. The length of time this takes to finalize varies dependant on a number of things, but mostly, the amount of traffic on that given path of travel.
Anyways, I’m coming back from a friend’s house, a town or two over, and I’m taking the back farm roads… Tooling along about 50mph, Jammin’ on the radio, when suddenly, the road surface changed without warning. The next thing I know, I’m doing 360’s (3 of them on the road) and the final one as I headed off the surface and into the open field on the left side of the road.
What was on the radio the whole time this was happening you ask?
Permanently ingrained ever since. LMAO.
Given it was a front wheel drive (1980 VW Rabbit, diesel no less) stick, I did try to down shift… But that only made things worse (since it DOES NOT APPLY when you’re on loose gravel). Anyways, the linkage was roasted, but I was able to limp home on 2nd and 4th gears!
I hated that car, as it had NO personality, but I LOVED getting 50mpg on it, and the fact that I got free fuel by swapping the local truck stop pizza for a fillup (since I worked at pizza hut during HS!) LMFAO
On another note. One of my favorite musical shifts occurred with the transition from the Def Leppard era (80-83/84) into the tastefully applied keyboards in Night Ranger!
