Musical moment mom and dad briefly become cool
THE song coming from inside my teenage son’s room was familiar from my senior year of high school, many moons ago.
I nudged his door open with a smile and nodded to his speaker: “Whatchu know about that song?!”
He was standing by a heap of sweatshirts and joggers, folding his laundry. And he tells me, “Oh, this is old-school R&B.” Like the song must be new to me, when I’ve known it twice as long as I’ve known him.
Music blaring on a Saturday morning means it’s time for cleaning. It’s a tradition inherited from my parents. It’s where I learned the songs they loved. Sometimes they roused us with contemporary radio. Sometimes gospel. But it was best when it was ’70s soul on the record player.
That was the sound of their late teens and early 20s. When that music played, I could imagine them young. The music made the memories fond and the images stick. Before long, Isley Brothers cassettes were playing in my room. And on another laundry day, decades ago, my mother nudged my door open with the very same question now coming from me.
I love these moments, catching a treasured memory from the other side. Being the adult in a scene that I recall vividly from childhood. Researchers call this a “reminiscence bump,” a phenomenon of gradual ageing where more and more of our most detailed memories trace from adolescence and young adulthood.
No matter how many birthdays we celebrate, this part of life remains overly represented in our remembrances. I can’t recall where we took our family vacation five years ago – but I can tell you in detail about the time in high school when I wore a purple polyester tracksuit to a cookout. And everyone was singing the song now playing in my son’s room.
Music from that part of life – the late teens and early 20s – stays with us and becomes the soundtrack for the reminiscence bump.
Just a few notes can take us deep into a detailed memory of a specific time and place. We return to these songs over and over again, even as our lives and styles change. They are such a staple for us that the little people around us begin to associate with them, too. They inherit an ear for it. And then, they acquire the taste.
They get a feel for it, too, by watching us with our music. It’s a thrill to watch the next generation vibe to the sounds of your youth. It makes you want to share the memories that come with it.
I told my son that no introduction to the music he calls “old school” was needed. And enthusiastically shared the story of the high school cookout and my polyester tracksuit. Then I remembered there was video. After a brief hunt for the old cassette, grainy footage of the cookout brightened the screen. And there’s a bird-chested teen in purple – serenading the lens. My whole family had a good laugh at the outfit and the singing, loud and off-key. It was cool seeing that guy again.
Photos, but no videos, document my parents as teens. In their bump years, home movies were luxuries far beyond the household budget. But I have seen them as teenagers, many times – most memorably on those Saturday mornings when I’d wake up to ’70s soul records blaring and the smell of vacuum cleaner in the air. There was no camera to catch them in those particular moments, dancing and singing. But I have snapshots of them, memories in mind and a soundtrack alongside. Over time, as their careers progressed, home videos came within reach. So I get to experience my reminiscence bump in flashes on-screen. There, I’m a teen again, listening to the Isley Brothers while my parents ask me how I know that song – the one they’ve known twice as long as they’ve known me.
Now, every day is a movie. We carry video cameras in our pockets, with seemingly infinite storage to record each moment. But some things can’t be captured by technology. Like when you catch your parents’ youth again.
I recently went back to my alma mater for a basketball game, the first time I’d been on campus in two decades. A gift from my sons. I showed them around the place, the spots for learning and those where we hung out. Told some stories and replayed lots of memories, feeling back in the day.
During a timeout at the game, music from my senior year of high school jumped from the speakers. I knew all the words. My boys did, too. It was like we went to school together. Like they might know a little somethin’ about that music after all.