7 March 2024

Soundtrack

There can't be many members of my generation whose musical tastes are all about looking forward and embracing what is new. Most of us look back to earlier times when our musical tastes were just forming. Maybe this is one of the hallmarks of aging - the tendency to be nostalgic - drawn to what once was - when we were young. 

How many of us have even heard of Benson Boone, Noah Kahan, SZA, Fred Again and Baby Akeem? For your information, they all currently appear in the British hit parade of top twenty singles. No doubt such acts are being embraced by the young whose pasts were too recent to dwell upon. They look forward while living in the here and now.

Here are three songs from the soundtrack of my youth that sometimes seems so long ago that I am like a lighthouse keeper looking to some distant horizon for signs of three-masted sailing ships.

Fairport Convention "Meet on The Ledge" (1969)
Lead singers - Ian Matthews and Sandy Denny

Roberta Flack "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"
Released in 1969 but performed here in 1972
 

Jackson Browne "Rock Me On The Water"
Released in 1972 but performed here in 1978

Dear Visitor.... If you were put on the spot and asked to name three songs that captured the spirit of your early musical preferences, which three songs might you pick?

41 comments:

  1. I went to Spotify and searched 80s Australian. I can't really choose 3 songs but let's say
    Beds are burning- Midnight Oil
    Never tear us apart - INXS
    Better be home soon - Crowded House

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    1. I don't know any of these songs Kylie - probably because you are so young!

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  2. They would have to be tracks from the 1960s - House of the Rising Sun from the Animals, Paint It Black from thr Rolling Stones, and Mr Tambourine Man from the Byrds, and anything from Dusty Springfield. There are a whole lot more that are the backdrop of a teenager coming of age at the peak of Sixties rock, and moving on to early Seventies tracks. There are some highlights from later years, Belinda Carlisle and Bonnie Tyler for example.

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    1. Oh yes - "Mr Tambourine Man"...that could have easily been one of my chosen three.

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  3. I was a mixture. I really liked folk music. But then country and western got in the way. After all we were very rural. Finally rock took over but all the time classical music was in the back ground.

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    1. Your musical journey was different from mine as you are a little older than me.

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  4. Fairport Convention? I know that name, I'll visit youtube. I have no idea what early songs "captured" me.

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    1. Perhaps you need time to think about this.

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    2. The Animals: It's My Life. Several by Gene Pitney. I'd have to listen to my CD collection to remember more. I have CDs of the 50's, 60's and 70s.

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  5. Linda Ronstadt singing anything; Jackson Browne, 'Running on Empty.' And some good old Motown ... The Supremes or Smoky, Stevie Wonder, Martha Reeves!

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    1. Glad to hear that you are also a Jackson Browne fan.

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    2. I never liked the Supremes, Diana Ross always whining about some man leaving her.

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  6. I won't think about it too much but here are three that jump into my mind.
    T Rex - Metal Guru.
    The Eagles - Hotel California
    Abba - Give me a man after midnight.

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    1. Mmmm... the third choice is interesting shall we say.

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  7. Spirit Of The Radio - Rush.
    Duchess - The Stranglers.
    Dust In The Wind - Kansas.

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    1. Because of you I have heard the last one but not the other two.

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  8. Bridge over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel
    Blowin' in the Wind - Bob Dylan
    You've Got a Friend - Carole King/James Taylor
    (And yes, favourites from my youth are still those I keep coming back to - while most recent "hits" and artists are - more or less - just a blur to me...)

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    1. Three songs which I would most definitely include in my own soundtrack.

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  9. I actually recognized two of the current singers you listed, Benson Boone and Noah Kahan. I do listen to modern "stuff" and I like the oldies as well. My favorites from my earlier years? Anything by the Supremes, the Carpenters, and a song that I think was from the 80s, "Life in a Northern Town". I think it was about a British northern town, but I grew up in an American one, and it always struck a chord with me.

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    1. I will search for "Life in a Northern Town" as I had forgotten about it. I loved Karen Carpenter's voice.

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  10. Maggie Mae
    Bobby McGee
    Chicago

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    1. Yes, and they had a song on their self titled album by that name.

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  11. I can't. Three? I can't.
    But I will say that the Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and the Rolling Stones "Sticky Fingers" meant an awful lot to me. Both of those are albums, of course, so that's totally cheating.

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    1. Yes it is cheating. You have been reported to Blogger Control.

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    2. I will be expecting a knock at the door.

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  12. I was never into Folk, but grew up with my Dad playing anything from the Beatles to Abba to Glenn Miller to Johann Sebastian Bach and back.
    My teens fell into the 1980s, and so it was that music I knew best, and to this day I can sing along to a great many, and know who worked on whose album, who did background vocals on what song, and who prepared the sandwhiches while the band were in the studio.

    Hard to limit my musical preferences on just three songs, but there are three that have been and still are firm favourites:
    Dusty Springfield - Son of a Preacher Man
    Depeche Mode - Just Can't Get Enough
    ABBA - The Eagle

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    1. Of these three Dusty Springfield's song would be my first choice.

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  13. I have too many to pick just three. I still listen to current music on the radio in the car but I don't often know the names of the singers / songs. But I do love a good beat!

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  14. If I chose songs solely from "my" teenage era, as opposed to songs from earlier years that I also liked, they would be:
    -- "Our Lips are Sealed" by the Go-Go's
    -- "Take On Me" by A-Ha (especially the video!)
    -- "Save a Prayer" by Duran Duran
    But I was mostly a fan of music from earlier years, like the Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Melanie, James Taylor, Carly Simon and Carole King.

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    1. Steve, Our Lips Are Sealed in the version by Fun Boy Three is my favourite!

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    2. The A-Ha song has always stuck in my head and yes it was a great video too.

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  15. Music has played such an important role in my life I'm not sure I can name three specific songs. Even the genres that molded my musical tastes were diverse.

    I'm reminded of a post I had years ago called "Movie of my life". Five questions were asked including what song would open the movie. As a bonus, I also included one for the closing credits.

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    1. Well - what was your opening song Kelly?

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    2. American Pie by Don McLean.
      https://ksrgmck.wordpress.com/2017/05/05/movie-of-my-life/

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  16. ABBA-Dancing Queen, Supertramp-Breakfast in America, Trooper-The Boys in the Bright White Sportscar.

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    1. Of these three songs, "Breakfast in America" is my favourite.

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  17. Earliest musical favorites of mine were Gilbert & Sullivan. We had several of their comic operas on records which my dad loved to play. But for my teenage musical tastes, it was the era of the birth of rock and roll and I loved "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis. Then I started my own personal record collection with Elvis Presley and "Blue Suede Shoes", though after I heard Carl Perkins' version I preferred it. My dad didn't care for r'n'r and took me to a Louis Armstrong concert which started my love affair with jazz. The two genres, as well as folk, calypso, blues, and classical have been fighting it out in my listening for the rest of my life.

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    1. Of course your job probably kept you "in tune" with music through the decades.

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  18. That's a fun thing to think about!
    Creedence Clearwater Revival's Down on the Corner
    Leon Russel's Tight Rope
    Rolling Stones' Gimmie Shelter
    So much good music back then!

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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