TIME'S TIDE WILL SMOTHER YOU

"Park the car at the side of the road
You should know
Time's tide will smother you
And I will too"

I am forever perplexed by my mind's ability to retain certain pieces of information, while other thoughts or memories disintegrate like paper through a shredder. I am confident that there are certain well adored song lyrics that will remain readily accessible until the moment of my last breath, whereas some things of seemingly vital importance are treated like disposable ephemera by my rather fickle mind. My mind is a temperamental beast that often resists my futile efforts towards inducing submission.

I was amazed recently by my lyrical recall abilities when I began to dive back into some beloved songs by one of my favourite bands of yore, The Smiths (courtesy of the recent "Sound of the Smiths" compilation - more on this in another post).

Some of the songs I hadn't listened to for a good 7 or 8 years and I was genuinely amazed at the instant familiarity with every lyric. My memory was working in auto pilot as I took in each song and basked in the glorious visceral experience of actively engaging with the music.

I also know that it wasn't simply my mind responding to the obvious prompt of being exposed to something familiar; all of this was so embedded in my mind and I was acutely aware that even during my half decade long Smiths listening drought I would still occasionally run through entire song lyrics in my mind.

To put my "working memory" in context, I usually have to request a password reset on a bi-weekly basis at work for my desktop, as the rather "obvious" passwords I choose are often snubbed by my mind like saltines and cheese whiz at a fancy dinner party. Needless to say, my ability to remember pretty well every lyric to the entire Smiths catalogue is no small accomplishment.

I am fairly confident that I will take pretty well every song by The Smiths to the grave with me. Somehow, if I am blessed enough to live into my 80's I think I'll be humming "Cemetry Gates" or "These Things Take Time" as some hapless care aid wheels me down the hallway and has to hear me rant about the brilliant concert in '86 one more time.

Without a doubt there will be times when I utter these classic lyrics with glee as I stumble about awkwardly (complete with some helpful visuals from Monty Python for good measure);

My totally baseless and unproven scientific theory is that there is a distinct reason why the songs that we listen to during our adolescent years become so embedded in our minds. It is not exclusively the result of nostalgia, but partially connected to the new neural pathways that are opening during this period of intense brain development.

The songs we listen to during this time weave themselves through these new pathways, and perhaps in many ways inspire their growth. Your memory can't help put recall the indelible imprints that first visit these new areas of the brain that are still pliable and less static. Listening to certain songs on a repeated basis in a rather obsessive manner certainly helps as well.

Regardless of how shaky my theory is I am confident that there will always be a firm place for a number of these songs in my otherwise perilous mind. Even if I can't remember the PIN for my ATM card or recall half the birthdays in my family (I have been rescued many times by those wonderful facebook birthday alerts) I will certainly be softly humming "There is a Light That Never Goes Out" up until the time that the lights actually do in fact go out for me.

Are there lyrics or songs that your brain will likely never be able to shake, regardless of what happens to your mental capacity over time?