Week the Twenty-seventh: Songs that Make Me Think of You

This week's topic over at Introvert Social Hour is songs that remind us of specific people. What a fun topic! I only spent a little while thinking about this and I came up with way too many examples. I'll keep it as brief as possible, I promise, and I'll do it by using categories.

Artists that remind me of specific people no matter what they're singing:

• Weird Al Yankovic, as well certain '80s pop/new wave bands like Human League, Tears for Fears, and the Pet Shop Boys remind me of my middle brother. We listened to a TON of Weird Al together when he first got famous, and we're still big fans to this day. On the other hand, he listened to the other bands more than I did so I associate them with him because it was stuff I listened to mostly when he was around.
• Jethro Tull, Tori Amos, and Rock Sugar make me think of my friend Patrick because they're his all time favorites. He likes lots of different music, but time pretty much stops for  him when those three artists come on.
• Anything by Maynard James Keenan (Tool, A Perfect Circle, Puscifer, and anywhere else he pops up) or anything by Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, The Dead Weather, and his solo work) makes me think of my friend Shawn because he introduced me to both artists and they're now two of my very favorites (as I may possibly have mentioned before in this blog!).
• Anything from the Grease soundtrack or by the Bee Gees remind me of a particular group of people I knew in high school who listened to that stuff pretty much 24/7. Not that I minded; I like it too. But seriously. They never listened to anything else.
• By far the saddest one: Every time I hear anything by Judas Priest I think of a friend who was murdered while Judas Priest was blasting out of his truck. (Now there's a little known fact about me...) I don't actually listen to them at all, myself, because I can't hear them without re-living that. I only hear them when someone else is playing something.

Do you KNOW how hard it was to not put another picture of Jack White here?!

Stupid boys:

• Rosanna by Toto always reminds me of my first boyfriend because he always sang it to me. Which... turned out to be pretty ironic when I wasn't the one who went away. Hmph.
• When I Need You by Leo Sayer makes me think of the #@*%$! who "didn't think it was important" to tell me that he was married until I accidentally found out after dating him for several weeks. He sang it to me all the time AND he was a disc jockey and he played it for me on the radio all the time (just because he wanted to, not at my request).
• Be in Want by Meghan Tonjes makes me think of a friend who has on several occasions had to deal with stupid game-playing boys.

 Family:

• Bali Ha'i makes me think of my parents. Really any film adaptation of a Rodgers & Hammerstein or Rodgers & Hart musical does because they loved that stuff and I grew up watching it (and lots of other musicals too, like Fiddler on the Roof, to name just one), but South Pacific was their favorite, and Bali Ha'i was their favorite from that.
• We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions, and Another One Bites the Dust by Queen, and YMCA and Macho Man by the Village People will always make me think of my younger brothers because we spent a lot of time singing those songs together. That's a happy memory.
• Keep On Loving You by REO Speedwagon always reminds me of my husband because it's one of his favorite songs and he sang it and talked about it all the time when we first met.
• Duet with Myself by Charlie McDonnell is SO my song with my niece, Emily, because she is the absolute image of me in more ways than I can even explain, both physically and otherwise. We even joke all the time (just like in the song) about how much we hate each other when in fact we're the best of friends and love each other completely. I realize it's actually about a person's relationship with him/herself, but it works perfectly for us, too, because we may as well be the same person.
• Two songs make me think of my nephew, Andrew. First is That's Amore by Dean Martin because one time when he was tiny he got dressed in a tiny tuxedo and sang it (the whole thing, all by himself, with a soundtrack that didn't have vocals!) for a Valentine's Day dinner. It was adorable! And the other one is Serpent-In-Claw by Gary Jules because the chorus says exactly how I feel about him.

Other nice people:

• Several songs from the '80s make me think of the kids that I nannied because I listened to that stuff all the time at their house, but for some reason the songs that do it most strongly are Safety Dance by Men without Hats, Lawyers in Love by Jackson Browne, and True by Spandau Ballet.
• Blonde over Blue by Billy Joel makes me think of my friend Peggy. I've always had a lot of throat and breathing issues, and when we lived together she loved to get me to sing the chorus of that song when I was hoarse. I can't hit high notes when I'm hoarse and we would both laugh when I sang "Blonde over -----..." because no sound came out on the world "blue". Hey, it's hard to explain in text, but trust me: It was hilarious. You just had to be there!
• Bad Romance, and specifically Searchlight's cover of it, makes me think of my friend's little girl, who loves it. I think it's adorable that a tiny kid likes that type of song.
• You Make Me Feel So Good by DJ Thoka always reminds me of my superhero. It may seem an odd song to be sentimental about, but he gave it to me at a particular time that made it super special to me.
• Cannonball by Damien Rice and Breakeven by The Script both make me think of my friend Tony because he used to sing them all the time and I miss both him and his beautiful voice (which is better than either of the original vocalists, if you ask me).
• And finally, Farewell by Doctor Noise (Bill Martin) always reminds me of Esther Earl, which is kind of odd, I guess, because Bill wrote a song specifically for Esther but I always associate Farewell with her. I guess it's mostly because I have Farewell on my mp3 player and hard drive so I hear it a lot, whereas I only hear the other song when I look it up on YouTube. In any case, they're both great songs.

There are many more, but I'll stop there. I've had a lot of fun thinking about this topic. I'd love to hear about any songs that make YOU think of people in your life. Be sure to leave any questions or comments below! And if you're interested, you can also find me on Twitter.

Thanks again for reading! If you haven't seen the videos that go along with this post, they are:

Jill, Kristina & Frieda

And that's it from me on this Saturday. Best wishes! <3