Sock Hop
What album instantly brings you back to your early 20s? Maybe stop everything and listen to it now.
For me, there would be many albums I would have to pull down to listen to. Simon and Garfunkel, Carole King, Neil Diamond, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Smother's Brothers, Santana and much, much more.
What would take you back to your 20s?
For me, there would be many albums I would have to pull down to listen to. Simon and Garfunkel, Carole King, Neil Diamond, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Smother's Brothers, Santana and much, much more.
What would take you back to your 20s?
Comments
Joy Division: ‘Unknown Pleasures’ (came late to that) and ‘Closer’.
The Smiths: eponymous debut album.
Some Sisters of Mercy early singles.
And many, many post-punk bands that never made it...
...Good Lord, how sensible and sedate I am these days, in comparison!
Supertramp - Bloody well right.
Can’t remember the titles of the albums off hand!
The Doors, which Mr Dragon introduced me to.
Used to listen to Dr. Demento and Weird Al late at night on a clear-channel station out of San Fransisco.
Janet Baker singing Britten's Phaedra at Aldeburgh in (I think) 1976. Shostakovich's Sonata for Viola and Piano, his last work, was a stunning new piece.
Rock around the clock in the Senior Common Room (when we weren't laughing at the Goon Show) in the late 50s;
Joan Baez How the winds are laughing early 60s;
Cream She's a witch of trouble in electric blue (Strange Brew) in the mid 60s . . .
Quireboys - A Little Bit of what you Fancy
Deep Purple - In Rock, Machine Head, Who do we think we are? (much older but I played them a lot then)
Gong - anything in the Zero the Hero, Angel's Egg, Pot Head Pixie era
Frank Zappa - We're Only In It For The Money
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Architecture and Morality
Bruce Springsteen - The River
Genesis - Duke
Joan Armatrading - Back to the Night
Neil Young
Joni Mitchell
Rolling Stones
Björk
The Unforgettable Fire and Joshua Tree by U2.
Echo & The Bunnymen..."Songs To Learn and Sing"? Was that the title?
Siouxsie & The Banshees.
Love and Rockets.
New Model Army.
Stiff Little Fingers.
The Sugarcubes. "Motorcrash" is still hilarious to me, as is "Deus". The loony lyrics!
“Rock Lobster”—The B-52’s
“Our House”—Madness
“Safety Dance”—Men Without Hats
“Don’t You Want Me”—The Human League
“Africa”—Toto
“Freeze Frame” and “Centerfold”—The J. Geils Band
“Burning Down the House,” or pretty much anything else by The Talking Heads
Anything by Earth, Wind & Fire
Anything by R.E.M., though some of their music stretches to my late 20s.
But no song can work the time machine magic on me like “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas. I hear that and I’m 16 again, driving (thanks to my new driver’s license) with the window rolled down and the wind in my hair.
Kansas’s “Carry on Wayward Son”* comes a close second, with “More than a Feeling” and “Don’t Look Back” by Boston close behind.
* One of my proudest moments as a father came when my son was around 13 or 14. I’d gone up to his room to talk him about something. As I left, I said “Alright. Well, carry on, my wayward son.” I got to the top of the stairs, turned around and went back to the door to his room. “Did you get that?,” I asked. He looked at me like I was the stupidest man he’d ever met, and said “Kansas. Duh!” I smiled the rest of the night.
But I prefer my mid-late 20s, when I lived in London and had more access to gigs and festivals, things like Catatonia and Pulp.
Tired of Christmas Songs already?
Tell your smart speaker to play the Billboard 100 list of the songs that were popular the year you graduated from your secondary education.
Name five of the songs and see if others can guess when you graduated. (no googling)
I'll go first.
To Sir With Love
Higher and Higher
Windy
There's Kind of a Hush
Groovin
Besides, I don’t have a smart speaker. (And I don’t want one.)
1963?
Nope
Was putting The Ballad Of John And Yoko in parentheses after Get Back meant to indicate that they are the same song? Because they are not.
Trying to get to Holland or Tucson, Arizona
The man in the mac said you gotta get back, get back
They didn't even give us a chance to get back to where we once belonged.
YouTube would disagree with your 45.
No. Not the same song.
Get Back is a Lennon & McCartney song (with Billy Preston on keyboards) released in April 1969 on the Let it Be album and as a single; the "get back" bit is a reference to anti-immigrant feeling un the UK.
The Ballad of John and Yoko was a stand-alone single and is all about the ruckus about Lennon and Ono's wedding and subsequent bed-in.
Seconded.
(Though admittedly, it is difficult to say exactly what those lyrics ARE about. I gather Jojo was a bit out of his depth among the California tokers and thus needed to get back to Tuscon, but what was up with Sweet Loretta Martin? It seems she had gender-identity issues, and her friends were all convinced she was gonna get laid pretty soon, but for some reason were simultaneously pessimistic about that prospect.)
Geno - Dexy's Midnight Runners
Call Me - Blondie
Talk of the Town - The Pretenders
My Perfect Cousin - The Undertones
Turn It On Again - Genesis
You graduated in 1982?
A ten year old could buy "Past Masters II" and work it out.
I watched a bit of that on TV. I think my only two clear memories are...
Madonna, with her old nudes recently published by Penthouse, jokingly saying to the crowd "I ain't takin' shit off today!"
Mick Jagger yelling "Where's Tina?" as an intro to his duet with Tina Turner.
Oddly, despite being a big Queen fan, I don't think I knew about their big set until that Freddie Mercury biopic came out a couple of years back.
Suffice to say that 1997 was a significant summer for me.
Wow, that's a surprise pick from the US. But maybe not - - the land of gold and poison, that beckons to us all.
Things like this, for instance. I'm so, so sorry.