Fly.

It’s common knowledge that certain songs remind different people of particular events, time periods, other people, feelings, relationships, whatever. It never ceases to amaze me at what kinds of things a certain song can dredge up from the deepest corners of my mind and soul. Examples:

1: Any song from “A Muppet Christmas Carol” will send me hurling back in time until I land on my couch on 307 E. 14^th St. on Christmas Eve, getting pumped for the next morning. It has been proven that if I don’t watch that movie at least once during the month of December, I literally will not get into the Christmas Spirit. At. All.

2: “The Hotel Song” by Regina Spektor will always and forever remind me of Carley and Chelsea singing that song on every single softball trip we ever went on as freshmen. For some reason, they latched onto that song like it was candy, invented dance moves and everything to go with it, and sang it on every trip. I had that song memorized before I ever even heard the version done by Regina Spektor herself.

3: “My Life Would Suck Without You” will, in my mind, always belong to Rhees. This Kelly Clarkson single was released during the first EdNet class I had with him, and he sang it pretty much every single day. What a guy.

4: “The Longer the Waiting” by Josh Turner, “Kiss Me Thru The Phone” by Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em (don’t judge, please), and “Vanilla Twilight” by Owl City were the three most prominent songs in a long-distance relationship that I had a while ago. Whenever one of these sneak up on me when I’m not expecting it, I tend to start thinking about the person with whom I had this relationship, which is never, ever a good thing for me to do in excess. So every time I hear one of these songs, I usually have to skip it if I can because they tend to bum me out for obvious reasons.

5: “Paper Planes” by M.I.A. was the favorite song of the summer of 2008. That was the last summer that Ashley, Nikiah and I were together. Nikiah moved that fall, and Ashley and I kind of had a falling out the following summer of 2009. Ever since then, nothing has ever been the same. But that summer, the three of us were together constantly. And one of our favorite activities was to drive my big green Dodge Dakota around town and blast this song, attempting to sing along, even though we didn’t know what most of the words were even saying. To this day, I can’t sing along with this song without doing the hand motions that Ashley and I invented.

Moving on: my inspiration for this blog is to be blamed on Sugar Ray. A few days ago, I was just messin around on iTunes and found “Fly” by Sugar Ray. All I had to do was think about the chorus in that song, and I was taken back. For some reason, whenever I hear this song I get this image of me sitting on the floor of the girls’ bedroom in Lumberton playing with Barbie dolls while Sarah’s radio was on. Basically, “Fly” by Sugar Ray is the song of the ‘90s for me. You’d think it’d be something by the Backstreet Boys or Ricky Martin or the Spice Girls or Britney Spears or N’Sync or any number of other overplayed pop artists of the ‘90s that would be engrained into my tiny 6-year-old brain for the rest of my life. But no, it was that one song. I’m pretty sure I even remember the music video.

Anyway, I was just thinking about that song and how it can somehow force my entire childhood’s worth of memories into four minutes and fifty-three seconds, and it seemed like a good thing to share. Now for feedback: what songs remind you of particular events? Stages in your life? Holidays? Relationships? Please, share. (: