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Blogs by Joel Arnold
The Power of Music 11/16/2010 8:51:03 AM
You know how certain songs can evoke certain feelings? Or perhaps there's a song that brings back a specific memory or reminds you of someone? There are certain songs from the early '70's that provoke this strange feeling in me. Sort of a longing, a melancholy that I couldn't quite place my finger on - until last night. It's like these songs were trying to bring back some memory, or some sensory...something. When I heard these songs, it was like there was a dream on the tip of my memory that I couldn't quite place. One song in particular that did this was One Tin Soldier - the 1971 version sung by Jinx Dawson of the band Coven (I had to look that up!) for the movie The Legend of Billy Jack. Another was Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves by (gulp) Cher, also from 1971. I totally remember listening to the '45s on my Show'n Tell Phono Slide Viewer when I was 3 and 4 years old. I can even picture what the label of the '45s looked like, down to the font used.
But so anyway, I discovered another group that evoked these exact same buried-dream-can't-quite-place-my-finger-on-it feelings. The late 60's/early 70's Korean band The Pearl Sisters. The reason I looked them up on You-Tube in the first place was because I'd talked a while ago with my sister Lori, whom my family adopted from Korea in 1970 - she was 12 and I was 2 at the time. In fact, my very first memory is of picking her up at the airport, and she had this purse on her shoulder with a long strap, and I held onto this strap as we walked through the airport, looking up in wonder at my new sister with long, black hair. But we were talking recently about her life in Korea before coming to the U.S., and she mentioned how one of her favorite bands was The Pearl Sisters. I finally looked 'em up, and there are a bunch of their songs on YouTube.
So last night after my wife and kids had gone to bed, I sat up listening to a bunch of their songs, and my God, did it ever send me back into that same mind-frame, that mysterious longing/loneliness/melancholy/not-quite-sure-how-to-describe-it-feeling.
And so I think perhaps I figured out what it is - what that feeling is, or what it's associated with; my sister. She was really my first friend, I think, and she'd listen to these songs when I was 2, 3, 4 years old, and she'd play with me and we'd have so much fun jumping on the bed, singing along - it didn't matter to me that she wasn't conversant in English, yet - and she'd let me hang out with her and watch her and bug her... But then she and I both grew up, and a big part of me missed having that new, exotic sister/friend to fawn and fuss over me and indulge my infantile whims. So I think the feeling is a nearly subconscious longing for my early, early childhood, and the early attachment I had with my big sister.
She's still a wonderful big sister, and I really should give her a call one of these days soon.
