Music and memory, music and emotion

The other morning I woke up at 5:56 am to go to the gym after apparently snoozing the first round of alarm beeping, which I have no recollection of doing. Isn't it strange when that happens? Anyway, I went to "The Ride", my gym's fancy name for a Spinning class, which is every other gym's fancy name for riding a stationary bike in a weirdly air conditioned, semi-dark room with at least a dozen sweaty strangers. Irene and I were actually trying to figure out why the instructor dims the lights as soon as class starts, but we couldn't come up with a good explanation. About halfway through the class a song that I only know from Austria came on our otherwise mellow soundtrack. The song is face-paced and has an Indian beat accompanied by a lot of wailing in some foreign tongue I can't understand. This song played very frequently in the clubs in Vienna and my particular memories of it playing all connect to Aux Gazelles, the Middle Eastern inspired club just off the foot of Mariahilferstrasse in the 6th district. I distinctly remember it playing on both occassions I was there: first with people I met through Webster University's European soccer tournament and the second time with an ex-Marine I met at Webster's graduation ball. It is a great club song and was very inspirational during The Ride. I made my legs spin faster and thought that perhaps I could just pedal all the way to Vienna, but when I got off the bike I was still in a semi-dark room full of sweaty strangers at 83rd and Amsterdam.

Isn't it interesting how music is connected to memory? And also to emotion? Some songs evoke particularly strong memories for me, like "Free Falling" by Tom Petty, which takes me back to drives home from Pella in the Mally with the window down, when gas cost $0.90/gallon and fields rolled by my window like waves on the ocean. Or the oldie "Hey Baby (I Wanna Know If You'll Be My Girl)", which puts me on a bus full of middle aged Germans swilling champagne from the bottle and belting out only the song's extremely repetitive chorus on the way back from a weekend ski trip. Then there are the songs that make you weep or make you euphoric, like hymns at church or certain pop songs. I'm also fascinated by my ability to remember the lyrics to thousands of songs when I can't even remember what I wore yesterday. I suppose song memorization is a repetition thing. At any rate, I'm glad that we have songs. How else would I remember those times flinging my friends around the roller rink in Strawberry Point (Hungry Eyes) or riding in Amy's big brown car in Northwood, IA with Martine, waiting for Amy to get back in the car with Theresa (Tupac's "Can'tC Me")? Those memories might just be lost to me without songs as an external reminder of all the good (and bad) times.