My oddball musical tastes

[Listening to: Placebo, "Pure Morning"]

After the mention of Placebo this morning in class, I've got it in my head for the rest of the night. I can tell you how my love of their music came about, though. A friend of mine by the name of Richard introduced me to it when I was living in New Mexico and going through a very rough time (moving away from home for the first time in my life, to a state nearly 1500 miles away, and dealing with depression). I never actually bought any of the albums, though; Richard burned all the songs he had onto CDs for me. The first song I ever heard was, I believe, "Special K", followed closely by "Pure Morning". They remain my favorites to this day. A lyric from the latter that I can identify with:

A friend in need's a friend indeed
A friend who'll tease is better
Our thoughts compressed
Which makes us blessed
And makes for stormy weather

Um... I'm not going to elaborate on that one, I guess. Anyway, it's become my "comfort music", along with Elliott Smith's album Either/Or, which is weird cuz there's not much comforting about either of them. Actually... they're both more or less shining examples of the sort of feelings I was trying to get away from. Maybe that's why they make me feel a little better; I can't pretend that I'm alone in my feelings.

It's interesting how there can be specific songs that you identify so closely with certain events that when you hear the songs, you relive the events. For example... for several years, my family and I went to Bismarck, ND every 4th of July, and the CD that I always had in my player for the trip was the soundtrack for RENT. So now when I hear the music, I remember driving across miles and miles of plains and crossing through fields of sunflowers turned towards the sun. Or, when I hear the Beatles' Lady Madonna, I can't help but picture the Econo Lodge front lobby in Socorro, New Mexico, where I stayed twice before starting college at New Mexico Tech. Also, Fool on the Hill reminds me of driving past the Grand Tetons, way out on the horizon. Velvet Underground's Lonesome Cowboy Bill reminds me of riding in a rented white Lincoln with my dad through the rural parts of Missouri at sunset, with our final destination of Emporia, Kansas nearly six exhausting hours away.

Can you tell I've been on a lot of road trips in my life? I think my blog's name might have something to do with that. But it's got greater meaning, too... I view my whole life as one long, never-ending journey down a road with its end lost in all its twists and turns.

There's one entry that really exemplifies what I'm talking about with the title of my blog. Dr. Morgan has mentioned it in class once or twice, so I figure I might as well link to it here and save any possibly interested parties the trouble of having to search all my archives for it.

So that's a little sneak-peek into my head. Odd little place, isn't it?