Is there a particular song or album that always reminds you of a certain point in your life? Not a person, but something about where you were at that point in time physically and/or emotionally. I have a few;

Scar Tissue- Red Hot Chili Peppers
Always reminds me of my first job washing pots and pans and doing general clean up at Rosario's Italiian Foods. That song/album had come out that year, and was played pretty heavily. Every time I hear that song I remember the giant beef slicer and the unique smell of the place.

Superunknow- Soungarden
Flew home for the 2005 World Series, and this was one of the CDs I brought with me to listen to on the plane. Still had a Discman in those days. Flying from Billings to Denver, I was able to give most of the record a spin. Every time I hear a song from this album (especially from the first half of it), I always remember flying over the Rocky Mountains

At The Drive-In Relationship of Command
I had gone with a friend to see Pearl Jam in Champaign in 2003. I think it was a Weds/Thurs night. We had classes back home the next day, so we had to drive home after the concert rather than crash with some friends who went to U of I. This was a sober concert, but we were still pretty tired by the night's end and I blasted this album to help keep me awake at the wheel.

Pearl Jam- Pearl Jam (The Avocado record)
Came out in 2006, so this always reminds me of my good and bad times in Bozeman, MT

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Solid thread title.

Off the top of my head the only one I can think of, and I never listen to this song anymore, is LAX Files by The Game is the one song that comes to mind when I think of my time in the Army. Guys around my barracks played that song fucking constantly and I grew to like it, basically because I had no choice.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Paperboy Ditty- 1992, even more specifically at a forest preserve 8th grade graduation party for a girl I used to take baths with when we were like 5 (weird right?)

Western Illinois, 1998-99
Pretty fly for a white guy
Closing time
Intergalactic
Ghetto Superstar

Ace of Base- The Sign was everywhere in 8th grade

Freedom of 76 by Ween

In high school we used to go up to Kenosha because a friend of ours had a farmhouse. We boozed it up there during the early Spring of 04. The next morning on the way to Denny's my friend put this song on. That song and that particular moment in time is what sense memory is all about. Would be cool to experience that moment again.

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Take the Long Way Home (1980) reminds me of the long drive in our '73 Nova from Algonquin to 59th and California to visit my grandmother. WLS must have played that one a lot that year!

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Starla by Smashing Pumpkins reminds me of being on the train either to UIC from home or to home from UIC (93-94).

The entire NIN Downward Spiral album reminds me of 94-95 when I was sick.

No Excuses (and the entire Jar of Flies album) reminds me of Spring. It gets cranked as soon as it's nice enough to have the sun roof open and windows down.

Slipknot Vol. III the subliminal verses album reminds of how shitty 2006 was personally.

Beck songs remind me of my wife in the summer, specifically at Pitchfork.

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@audioidkid

The Man in Me --- Dylan song plays a prominent part in The Big Lebowski and one of his dream sequences. The movie came out in 1998 and I was living with my brother and his best friend in a 3 bedroom apartment during my senior year of college. We liked playing that tune a lot fall of 98.

Hey Ya -- Outkast song from 2003. I went on a golf trip with 3 buddies down to a town about 30 minutes south of Atlanta. We got to play free golf and at night we drove up to Atlanta to check out the Buckhead neighborhood where they had trendy bars and places to hang out. On the way up we pulled up next to a big Rolls Royce and I rolled down the window to ask the older lady driving if she had any Grey Poupon. She actually did! This song was playing on the way home and it was a very popular tune that year.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Yeah, really...I was going to say the same song. I was on the way to a winter retreat when I was about 13 and that song sounded so good, especially when the drums first enter.

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"Who let the dogs out?" pretty much defines my college experience.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Screaming for Vengeance- Judas Priest. Junior and Senior Year High School. working at my dads bar and wasting the money on beer with my friends

If I have to go - Tom Waits. Reminds me of my brother and all the things we did and will never get to do.

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When I am stuck and need to figure something out I always remember the Immortal words of Socrates when he said:"I just drank what?"

I have two that I rarely can listen to anymore. Green Day Good Riddance and Floyd Wish You Were Here. Even though I know logically that it is for a meaning completely different than the songs intent.

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Elections have consequences.

Like a Virgin seemed to be everywhere in ChamBana

You'll Never Find - Lou Rawls was on WJPC every hour, meaning that twice a day in a summer program in Evanston my mom & I sang it in the car.

Sympathy For The Devil was in heavy rotation on the classic rock station I listened to whilst cleaning & gassing up rental cars at the Atlanta airport. That and everything REM/B-52s/Athens related as well.

The music from Aida. I swear that my mom sang that opera so often I practically memorized it as a kid. It didn't help that she usually drug me along with her for her practices.

Waiting on My Angel - Jamie Principle. A House music standard that always reminds me of a club on lower Michigan that in retrospect, I cannot imagine how the city let ever open. (Think The Billy Goat, but smaller, no windows, in a sketchier area, and packed with 300+ dancing fools) Sometimes for 72 hours straight on school holiday weekends. Aside from losing your hearing for hours afterwards, the only other bad thing was seeing the idiots who drank the acid laced water from the giant copper Turkish coffee urn(?)

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Da Drought 3 - Lil Wayne

Summer before starting college I worked at my dad's buddy's factory. I'd sort parts, pack boxes, cut the grass, etc.

Real menial shit work for 8-10 hours a day. But that mixtape was my soundtrack that summer.

That reminds me of 2010-2011 coaching baseball and hearing DJ Khaled's "All I Do Is Win" anytime I passed a park...or slept. I really think my son played 200 games between February to October. And only missed 2 days of school.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

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Live - Overcome
came out right after 9/11 and it was sort of a soundtrack to how people felt at the time.

Big Wreck - That Song
The soundtrack of my summer of 1998

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The Californication singles (the only RHCP songs I really like) always remind me of the second half of 8th grade, which is kinda weird because upon checking, the album came out the summer before. I guess they must have stayed in heavy rotation for a good long while on Kiss FM, that or they took a long time to trickle out? Anyway, that's an instant flashback to 8th grade for me and all those wrestling meets and geography bees and stuff.

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Californication was summer after 6th grade iirc. I remember thinking that was the height of music at the time.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Bush’s Razorblade Suitcase reminds me of my parents’ divorce.

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-- source

Bush’s Razorblade Suitcase reminds me of my parents’ divorce.

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-- source

1999-2000, and I was pretty blown away by it, too. My goober friends were starting to get into metal around that time, but I knew that wasn't for me, nor was the Britney/BSB I had to sit through on WZOK and Kiss FM (the old one) to get to the stuff I liked. "Black Balloon" by the Goo Goo Dolls was another one that I thought was pretty amazing around that time.

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Early 80s Country
In the early 80s my family would go to my Aunt and Uncles cabin on the Tippecanoe River near Monticello, IN two or three times a year. They would always have a radio playing country on the porch while we fished down on their pier. Every time I hear a song from that time period it takes back to fishing on their pier.

Mother - Danzig
Reminds me of high school baseball practice. A few of us would load up in a buddies car to ride to the field. And this sound was almost always played on the trip.

Hotel California - Eagles
Again High School baseball but on the bus rides to games. We listened to this song on every ride.

Jump Around - House of Pain
High school football - junior and senior year- was the music playing while team ran onto the field

Don't Bring Me Down - ELO
In high school they put a Jukebox in the cafeteria but only put 70s music on it. A buddy of mine loved this song and rushed to the box every day to play this song.

Closing Time - Semisonic
Worked midnights in a factory when this song was out. I swear it seemed that every night on my drive to that factory that song played.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

In middle school, our YMCA had Awkward Middle School Dances almost every Friday night (Y Night, we called it!) and this was the song that would play at the end of each one. So it reminds me of getting my coat after a night of our collective brilliant idea to go back and forth between playing basketball and trying to dance with girls. The other songs that also got regular play were the Grease megamix and, for some reason, "Funkytown."

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Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect by The Decemberists

Reminds me of crushing super hard on every stuck up indie girl with bangs during my freshman year of college.

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This thread reminded me of another one. Around the same ‘99 summer I think it was, maybe the year after, I got my first job at 14 working at a pool called Seascape, telling kids it was ok to go down the big slide. They played that goddamn Lifehouse song Falling even more in love with you like every hour. It was a big reason in me quitting halfway through the summer. I can’t imagine I’ll ever hear that song against but if I do I’m sure I’ll think of Seascape.

Edit summer of 01 I guess, that makes sense it would’ve been after 8th grade. Anyway, fuck that song.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I liked that song! And also Seascape. I used to go there with my cousins. Was someone in charge of the music with limited resources or did you just have to listen to the Mix all day?

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Moon Lake Boulevard represent!

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Ol’ Moonlake and Volid. That was my go-to neighborhood to smoke pot in my car in HS when my family was at home cuz of all the twists, turns, and that entire block of parking lots/apts.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Aquatic centers owned. I liked them way better than lakes. I remember in my first year up north, all the neighborhood kids except me went to the beach and came back not with sunburn but with chiggers. I went over to my friend's house and everyone was pockmarked and shirtless, pouring rubbing alcohol on themselves to kill the insects that had burrowed into their flesh. That never happened to me at Seascape or the one in Wheeling, I can tell you that much.

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Summer 1980 high school baseball team bus... Billy Joel's "Glass Houses" album.

Listened to it every road game.

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."