Early, very early soundtracks
Okay, I think I am ready to experiment.
AS I mentioned in my previous post, there are songs that just transport me back to moments in time. For some, like this one, I don't actually remember liking the song so much at the time, rather when I hear it now I think about a particular time in my life.
One of the convenient little facts of my life is that I entered elementary school in 1960. What's convenient about that is that I can immediately tell what grade I was in when talking about any particular year. So when the Hollies released this single I was in 7th or 8th grade, and would have been 11 years old. (I was 5 when I entered first grade, the result of a late December birthday.)
On A Carousel speaks to me of the awakening of puberty, that time when girls turned from odd creatures that trotted around the playground pretending to be horses to odd creatures that seemed to affect your internal chemistry when they walked by. One of my first crushes was on this cute little blonde girl named Amy McClean. She was in 7A and I was in 7C, so we had a combined homeroom together. But I was very shy, and I don't think I ever spoke to her without coming away from the conversation feeling like I had proven my innermost fears of being a dork.
I never did get to first base with Amy, but despite feeling so awkward, I smile when I think of it even now. I mean, I WAS a dork!! And what I realize now is that was okay. She was very possibly out of my league at the time, but I grew up to realize that didn't need to be a permanent situasion. Years later, after I had matured a bit, I could have pursued that first crush but had moved on to different crushes, different insecurities.
This song takes me back to a time when every word seemed critical, where every clothes choice seemed monumental and yet every day seemed brimming with possibilities.
AS I mentioned in my previous post, there are songs that just transport me back to moments in time. For some, like this one, I don't actually remember liking the song so much at the time, rather when I hear it now I think about a particular time in my life.
One of the convenient little facts of my life is that I entered elementary school in 1960. What's convenient about that is that I can immediately tell what grade I was in when talking about any particular year. So when the Hollies released this single I was in 7th or 8th grade, and would have been 11 years old. (I was 5 when I entered first grade, the result of a late December birthday.)
On A Carousel speaks to me of the awakening of puberty, that time when girls turned from odd creatures that trotted around the playground pretending to be horses to odd creatures that seemed to affect your internal chemistry when they walked by. One of my first crushes was on this cute little blonde girl named Amy McClean. She was in 7A and I was in 7C, so we had a combined homeroom together. But I was very shy, and I don't think I ever spoke to her without coming away from the conversation feeling like I had proven my innermost fears of being a dork.
I never did get to first base with Amy, but despite feeling so awkward, I smile when I think of it even now. I mean, I WAS a dork!! And what I realize now is that was okay. She was very possibly out of my league at the time, but I grew up to realize that didn't need to be a permanent situasion. Years later, after I had matured a bit, I could have pursued that first crush but had moved on to different crushes, different insecurities.
This song takes me back to a time when every word seemed critical, where every clothes choice seemed monumental and yet every day seemed brimming with possibilities.
posted by (jim) Bo Ba Log at 1:34 PM
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