craveytrain

I tend to have a phonographic memory (that auditory, not porn, for the adjective challenged). Ok, so I just made that up. I’m not sure what you call it, but I tend to remember sounds better than pictures, numbers or any other sorts of things. Maybe you call it aural (again, that’s listening, not oral, you pervs). Combine that with a reasonably decent ear for music theory and it leads to lots of aural deja-vu.

I go to church with my fiancee from time to time. The services we go to are a bit more modern than your average high church in that there’s not a lot of preaching down from the pulpit. I would say a good half to 3/4 of the service is music. Mostly more modern style songs, not a lot of Ava Maria or anything like that. However, at least once every couple trips I find myself leaning over to the fiancee and asking, “Does this tune sound familiar? I swear the chorus melody is from an Elton John song.” Yes, I have just admitted in public I listen to Elton John. Yes, I know the repercussions of such an action hence the reason I made it a point to mention the fiancee in the same sentence.

I find this a lot, with a lot of different genres. I have to say, I used to be a big hip-hop/rap fan, but they really are the worst about it. Of course, it’s called “sampling” and it’s considered a mainstay of the genre these days. I just have more respect for someone that can throw a unique sound behind the more modern lyrics. Though, sometimes my own supposed youth gets in the way of my judgement.

Considering I was born in 78, there was a lot of music made before my time. A lot of really great music. In fact, most of the really great music, imho. So I don’t always hear music in the order it was made. Quite to the contrary most of the time it seems. I remember when I heard Gwen Stefani - Luxurious I wasn’t crazy about it, but was further put off by the fact that she used Biggie - Big Poppa musical accompaniment. I found out later that day the actual tune was from Isley Bros - Between The Sheets. I should have guessed. It’s always the Isley Bros. Man, I hope those guys have a good laywer, cause they should be rich on all the samples people have used of their music.

But the latest (and probably most embarassing) installment in this saga hit me today while I was working and behooved me to write this little article. I was listening to my iPod on random. And when I say random, I mean truly random. I have classical to country to rap to rock to everything in between. A classical track came on, Bach - Menuet in G Minor. I was coding along when all of a sudden a couple bars sounded eerily familiar. Harkening back to my childhood, I repeated the segment, trying to find out where I recognized the tune from. After a couple playbacks, I got it: Zelda. The original Zelda. My favorite video game of all time. That theme song has been ingrained into my head after as many hours as I have dedicated to those pixels. I am sure I have heard that Menuet before, giving myself the benefit of the doubt, the first time was probably in high school. But Zelda, I have to go back to elementry school to remember the last time I played it. Yet another example if inspiration. Though, to be honest, I didn’t knock Zelda down a rung because it didn’t have unique music. Call me out for having double standards, but that was one hell of a game.

And yes, I will own the Wii, and I will buy the Zelda game for it. You can bet on it.