A Trip Down Memory Lane

Using Pandora Radio, I created a Depeche Mode Station. I figured, why not - Depeche Mode was one of my favourite groups whilst growing up a child of the 1980s. I was quite surprised, pleasantly surprised at that, at how many of the groups and songs I actually remembered. Admittedly, for at least the last 15 years or so, I haven't really paid much attention to commercial radio. Come to think of it, since I left San Diego back in 1992, I listened to mostly NPR stations such as WBUR, WGBH, KPBS whenever I went home for the holidays, and in recent days, WUNC, as well as the Classical Music Station, WCPE. So I pretty much lost touch with popular music. Of late, whatever music I had chosen to listen to were those that I've been working on, so needless to say, lots of organ music. It's funny - when I was a postdoc at UNC School of Medicine, people would walk over to my little cubby area that I called my office, and remarked that it felt like they were walking into a church when they listened to the music I had playing in the background! :-)

Whilst subjecting myself to the Depeche Mode Station, I found it was rather nice to be listening to an endless stream of 1980s-era music. I had forgotten what a huge fan I was of Duran Duran, Dead or Alive, the Psychedelic Furs, Tears for Fears, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Soft Cell, Camouflage, etc. Some of it, I thought would make excellent "driving" music, having just the right beat to accompany a long driving trip. (That's how I also thought of a lot of the Beatles' music, but then again, much of my childhood memories of that is associated with a Carolina Blue 1974 Datsun B-710 station wagon, an 8-track player, and long drives between San Diego and San Jose or intermediate drives between San Diego and Los Angeles ...)

It's been a nice distraction from some of my tasks from today ... most notably the writing up of yet another exam ... it's funny how I get reduced to a squee-ing mass of ... humanity ... when I recognise a song I haven't heard for years, only to find it as new and fresh as I did when I first heard it some 20 years ago.

I must be a horridly sentimental sap. Sigh. Well, back to reality ...