Flashback

It's amazing how music can transport you back to another time and place. Right now I'm listening to The Nylons. Old school, yes. Fantastic and amazing, yes. When I was in high school I spent a lot of time hanging out with two boys who were two years older than me. I can't even being to tell you how much these two meant to me then and how much they still mean to me now. They are the brothers I never had and I love them so much. As part of band we ushered for local concerts. If we weren't interested in the concert we would just hang out in the lobby of stairs and the boys would sing. They sang a lot of things but one of the things I remember them singing was The Nylons. And now as I listen to The Nylons I can see us hanging out in that stairwell and the boys singing.

Eric Whitacre's Ghost Train Triptych is another song that really takes me back. We played the 1st movement of it my freshman year of high school at The Pacific Basin Music Festival in Hawaii. These same two boys were in band with me and on that trip. Listening to this song takes me back to that time and place where we got a standing ovation from a packed house and all three judges. It was amazing. One of the boys and I also spent a lot of time together listening to this song and driving around Fairbanks. Wonderful memories.

Another song that reminds me of these two boys is Johan de Meij's Symphony No.1 The Lord of the Rings: I Gandalf (The Wizard). This piece was inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of Rings trilogy but was composed long before the movies came about. Anyway each year the senior class gets to pick a song that the band will play at graduation. It's the last time the seniors get to play with the group and it's kind of a big deal. This was the song that the class of 1998 chose to play at graduation. One of the boys was a tuba player and the other was a percussionist so in the set up of our band they were close to each other. I remember during graduation looking over and seeing the boys and starting to cry knowing this was the last time I would ever be in band with them. I can still close my eyes and see CS playing the timpani drum at the end of the song. CS if you are reading this I totally love you and can't wait to see you at Christmas!

Congratulations on making it this far. Now I pose the question to y'all: what songs take you back in time and where do they take you?