You know about Proust and his madeleine, right? How in In Search of Lost Time the little cake, a wash of flour, butter and sugar in the mouth, brings back a whole world? That beautiful line, “The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it”? Well, who knew that hearing Rod Stewart’s Tonight\'s the Night on the car radio yesterday would be my madeleine moment?
Suddenly, there I was: on the cusp of life, ready for everything. I was sixteen again, a “virgin child” myself, and that song — that daggy, daggy, so uncool song, sang by the so uncool Rod — bought everything from those summer months flooding back.
I remember the fizz of pleasure in my veins, the great, huge, impossible hopes I had, how my friends and I spoke endlessly about the mystery of sex that was awaiting us.
How I wish I had put in a bit of Rod Stewart now in My Hundred Lovers. Aint that the great wonder and pleasure of life? A cake? A song?
And what about that other song, Susan? My vintage? Have I got it? Never uncool.
Oh, yes, THAT one is one of my all-time-favourites and NEVER uncool. Here’s Ella singing it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqjKOalcI10
Same here, with “Maggie May”. Whenever I hear that song, I’m on the school bus again.
Oh, yes, I LOVE that one! Kinda sad, isn’t it — he is SUCH a dag (but the songs have stood up pretty well I reckon).
The Beatles ‘Hold Me Tight’ does it every time – I’m back in Redcliffe, high school girlfriend in my arms, everything ahead of me on the planet of possibilities…
Maybe everyone has that one song? It’s amazing the Pandora’s Box that is opened when it comes to memory — smell, taste, sounds. Coconut oil, fo example — sunbaking in Emma Felton’s back garde in Richmond Avenue, St Ives, aged 14….the body’s memories….always ours, until we are perished….
Sweet Surrender by Tim Buckley takes me back to my first experience of share households in inner-city Sydney in the late 70s.
Oh, yeah! I remember that so well…and then when his son came along it was so weird, to think one was old enough to be young when his daddy was around!