memories - ilivetotravel's travel log

Melodies and Travel Memories

Leah, from leahtravels.com wrote a post about melodies and the travel memories they bring. It is a great idea for a post and I will be tagging 7 others as she tagged me in her writeup.

As a kid, we did not do family vacations as we did not have the means and we lived in an island (so no big drives across states!). But songs do bring memories and take me back to different places. Here are my songs…

Love Is Blue (Al Martino)

(Listen to it here)

It may not remind me of travel but I think it does transport me to one of my earliest childhood musical memories. As a kid who was learning English at school, I probably had no idea what the song was about except that it mentioned the color blue.

But what I do remember is that the melody of this song, when it would come on the radio, would IMMEDIATELY triggering a crying spree on my part. Apparently, I cried with so much emotion that the adults around me could not stop laughing. I recall one time that my Mom had to pull over with my grandma also in the car because they were laughing so hard that she couldn’t drive and was on the merge of going #1 right then and there. I hadn’t heard the song in likely over a decade until just now when I thought this song had to be listed here. (Happy to report only minor sobbing, barely audible.)

The color blue for those who want to know…

The Pinocchio Song (not sure if it even has a name! Canción Infantil Pinocho is how I have found it)

(Listen to it here)

Another song from my childhood taking me back to being 6 or under… It was a song my Dad -who had a great voice- would sing to my sister and I about Pinocchio (I remember the age because my memory of him singing it is when he was still married to my Mom). It was a song in Spanish and I remember feeling it was a sad song though it is the story of Pinocchio which ends well).

The song had evaporated from my memory until my Dad passed away a couple of years ago and my sister and I were trying to remember him in our childhood. She is 5 yrs older so she remembers more than me.

Since Disney would kill me for putting a picture of Pinocchio, I chose to include here a pic of the family instead. Toddler ilivetotravel on the left!

It’s Still Rock ‘n Roll to Me (Billy Joel – The Essential Billy Joel)

This song reminds me of my drive around Switzerland with a co-worker and friend as we escaped from Paris for a weekend. This song played during a particularly beautiful part of the road between Bern and Interlacken and I remember re-playing it a couple of times at a good enough volume. Somehow, the mix of this song, the drive and the enjoyment of the trip was energizing!

What’s the matter with the clothes I’m wearing…

…You get more mileage from a cheap pair of sneakers…

Don’t Stop (Fleetwood Mac)

I had not been much of a fan of Fleetwood Mac (for no real reason, just hadn’t caught on, I s’ppose) but then I went to the World Expo in Sevilla in 1992. Yes, seeing the pavilions while it was 40 C was fun. The pavilions themselves transported you to all these countries (and got you into air conditioning). But the REAL fun in the World Expo was the parties at night. This song by Fleetwood Mac played at some point well after dinner and well into drinks. I remember everyone climbing up on the picnic tables in the outdoor pavilion we were at dancing, and drinking some more. I definitely felt tomorrow WOULD BE better than before, as soon as the hangover passed.

Though in some ways the following words may seem to tell us not to focus on past trips (stay with me…), they sure tell us to keep planning away, to keep dreaming away our next destinations and discoveries! The song made me feel – and still does – that tomorrow will always be better. A great way to look at life indeed.

Why not think about times to come
And not about the things you’ve done
If your life was bad to you
Just think what tomorrow will do

Life Is a Highway (Tom Cochrane’s version)

Now this is a song that defines my outlook in life as a whole and may need to be played at my funeral. It means that travel is inherently part of life: going places, not being stationary. But, more importantly, travel also not in the geography sense but in the sense of movement, of progression, of starting points and endpoints, of not stagnating. The melody and the lyrics all work for me. My anthem!

Knock me down get back up again
You’re in my blood
I’m not a lonely man
There’s no load I can’t hold
Road so rough this I know
I’ll be there when the light comes in
Just tell ’em we’re survivors

Here are six fellow bloggers I am tagging to share the songs that conjure up some of their favorite travel memories. Please feel free to tag others after you’ve published!

Now it’s your turn. Do you have a song that instantly transports you to another place and time? What is it? Where do you go?

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Pictures of the Week: These Pix Will Not Be Winning Any Contests…

These pictures are not going to enter any contest nor get used for wallpaper anywhere (including my own laptop). But they are very significant. At least to me. See, they represent the first time I got a used camera from someone to use and likely the first pictures I ever took as a 7-8 yr old.

The choice of B&W was not intentional. I don’t recall if my Mom went to buy me the film. I think it is more likely the film was with the unused camera and I just took the film that was there. Color photography had existed FOR YEARS, for the record, when I took these pix 🙂

The pictures are of what seemed the world to me at that time, before I realized I would live to travel (or even that there was much of anything outside of MY world). The pitures are from the world around my home. I lived in this house (in Jardines de Caparra, for those of you who know PR) probably 3 or 4 yrs, about 6 houses away from my grandparents and one of my aunts/uncles. And in the same neighborhood as 3 other aunts/uncles (if I recall correctly).

So, they are not going to do anything special in this world. They only have real value to me (maybe my sister or Mom if they remind them of something from long ago). But they show my first steps of discovery and wonderment at the world out there – worth capturing with an old camera…

Looking to the right of the front porch towards where Skippy, the dog, lived

Of course, I wanted a picture of the sun across the street from (us facing west and towards the river in front of the house). I didn’t know a ring would show on the pic!

A picture of the back of Skippy’s house, notice the bars on windows that have been ever present in the Puerto Rico I knew…

I believe this is the house 4-5 houses down from us towards the corner where one of my buddies lived.

The front of our house. Not sure why I didn’t do the whole facade!

The other neighbor’s house with the “sauce llorón” (weeping willow, I think). Where Meiling lived (she was not Chinese, not sure why the parents chose the name).