"Man, that song really takes me back!"

We've all said that phrase at one time or another in our lives, and it seems that the older we get, the more we say it...simply because the older we get, the more we have to "get taken back" to.

So for a change, I thought I'd post some of the songs that take me back; besides, it'll be a nice break from my usual ranting and raving, don't you think?

So much like Mr. Peabody and Sherman, let's step into the "Wayback Machine" and take a little trip or two back in time, shall we? (What, you never watched "Bullwinkle?" Jeez, am I showing my age again? I guess you never heard of "The Banana Splits," either?)

"American Pie," by Don McLean
My absolute favorite song of all time, hands down. This one takes me back to the summer of 1971 when I was 14 years old and spent the entire summer bumming around Highland Springs, Virginia with my best friend, Mike Cooper. Every time I hear this song I immediately think of Mountain Dews, cheeseburgers and fries at Carneal's Drive-In, the Windham twins who lived on the next street over, and Mortimer Snerd. (That's a private joke between Mike and I, and will remain private, thank you!) It was also the last summer that I would spend both with Mike and in Highland Springs, because in June of 1972 my family moved to North Carolina. That summer was easily one of the best summers of my life to date.

"In The Summertime," by Mungo Jerry
This song takes me back to the same summer, only to a very particular part of it - the early morning hours, and by early morning I mean around 4:00AM or so. Mike and I were both paperboys and had adjacent morning routes, delivering for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. We had to be at the paper drop at the Colonial Store at the intersection of Nine Mile Road and New Avenue by four AM when the papers got there, and it seems like every single morning while we were sitting on the sidewalk in front of the store, folding papers and loading them in the big baskets on the front of our bikes, this song would always come on the radio that one of the five paperboys using this drop always had turned on. To this day, whenever I hear this song I can feel the damp morning air, hear the stillness of the sleeping town, and smell the dew on the cornfield on a property on my route.

"If Only You Believe (In Miracles)," by Jefferson Starship
With this song, the Wayback Machine stops in the late summer of 1975, specifically in the months of August through October. It was during this time period that I was in the Security Police Academy at Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas, learning my trade as an Air Force Security Policeman. I went on active duty 19 Jun 1975 and graduated from basic training on 4 Aug; I started the SP Academy two weeks later. This was my first time away from home, and I quickly got to learn to like being on my own. There were 125 airmen in my class, and the class was so big that they split my flight into two shifts. Half of the flight would have class from 6AM until noon, and the other half would have class from noon until six PM. Since I was the Flight Leader, I got to choose which class I wanted to take, so I took the early class. Sure, getting up at 4:30AM was a drag, but on the positive side you were finished with your duty day by noon and had the rest of the afternoon and the evening to yourself - which meant PARTYING! And man oh man, did I party! Most nights I was lucky to get in bed by midnight, and to this day I don't know how I graduated from the Academy since I don't remember studying much at all. But where the song comes in is simple - I had a clock radio that I bought when I got out of basic training, and each night as I hit the sack I'd set it to play for an hour before shutting off. It seems like just about every night, right before I'd drift off to sleep, this song would come on the radio like clockwork. Still one of my favorite songs to this day.

"Copperhead Road," by Steve Earle
When I was at Dharhan AB, Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, the AFRTS (Armed Forces Radion and Television Services) radio station was located in my patrol zone, right across the parking lot from the command post for my sector. I got to be good friends with the midnight shift DJ, since we both were stuck working those hours of the day. I kept him supplied with MREs and soft drinks, and he in turn would play whatever I wanted him to play. I had first heard this song the year before when I was in Korea and immediately liked it, so I'd always have him play this song. When the station started a request program about a month later, for reasons I am unaware of this song became the #1 requested song. You were guaranteed to hear this song at least twice an hour! It got so bad that the Army - who ran the AFRTS in theater - actually removed the song from the playlist! The outcry was immediate, and two days later the song was back. So whenever I hear this song, that's where I end up - Saudi Arabia in the middle of the night.

And that's it for now. I've just sat here for the past ten minutes trying to think of more songs that take me back to someplace I've been, and I can't think of any more. So I guess my list ends with four.

For now. Tomorrow is, as they say, another day.

IHC