Sunday Songs of Nostalgia - Nirvana

 So in the late 90's (my mid teens) my best friends were a group of outcasts, we lived and breathed music, we formed bands held gigs debated lyrical meanings and spent our weekends singing at the top of our lungs on my friend Toms back porch until the wee hours of the morning.
His neighbors were amazing, they never complained. 

Bands that defined us at the time included The Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and Bob Dylan. Tom was really into skateboarding and he was desperate to teach me, but I was overweight and uncoordinated so no amount of showing me how to 'Olly' could prevent the death wobbles down the hill near Toms house.

Whenever I hear Nirvana songs these days I think of those moments on (and falling off) the skateboard and in our mates music room, leaning up against the huge amplifier next to the drum kit while playing the bass guitar riff of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at full volume.

Ahh those were the carefree moments of my youth where nothing mattered but the music vibrating through your soul, my favourite Nirvana song ironically was "Lithium" - when I listen to that song now the words make so much more sense!

For your listening pleasure I have put both "Lithium" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" below so you can get your grunge on with me!

 

Sunday Songs of Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a funny thing, I often find myself taken back to the happier part of my early to mid teens triggered very suddenly by a song that will come on the radio out of the blue. I have a very eclectic taste in music and have over 2000 songs with everything from Enya to Eminem on my iPod. No I don't want to think about how much money I have spent on iTunes either, late night manic music binges have a lot to answer for!


So I thought I would do a little story about one of my nostalgic songs each Sunday when nobody is reading anyway, this week its an old school Peter, Paul and Mary rendition of "Lemon Tree".
So "Lemon Tree" takes me back to a rather stressful point in my life as the 17yr old brand new mother of a very colicky baby.

The poor little man cried day in day out in obvious pain and there wasn't a damn thing hubby or I could do about it, we had tried all of the potions from the chemist to no avail, I felt like a terrible mother. One day we had a Peter, Paul and Mary CD playing and as my husband rocked our crying baby son the song "Lemon Tree" came on and just like that he stopped crying and went to sleep.

We had found the magic key and thereafter "Lemon Tree" became the song of late night feedings and 5pm colic soothing. When my son later developed night terrors we found putting "Lemon Tree" on repeat before he went to bed seemed to help prevent episodes.

So "Lemon Tree" as sick to death of it as I am now, can be credited with mostly maintaining my sanity as a new mother and every time I look at my lemon tree in the backyard I am taken back to that song and that time in my life.