Music creates powerful memories for me. I can remember all sorts of inane facts if they are set to music. I tend to binge on music. When I get a new CD, I tend to listen to the first two or three songs over and over until I have all the words memorized so that I can sing it to myself later. This part of my brain is like an organic iPod. I may have a new CD for days before I hear song #4. Often the initial music binge will retain the memory of the events that brought the music to me. For example, the new Nickleback CD will always remind me of Bike Week in Myrtle Beach. Marc Cohn will always remind me of dancing with my children until we broke the coffee table. The Indigo Girls provide a whole language system for me and my friends Julie & Peggy. Pink Floyd's "Echoes" will alway remind me of skipping school during my senior year. All songs from "Jesus Christ Superstar" remind me of my brother.

One of my favorite record album memories is Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell." The summer I was 14, I worked at a summer camp as Jr. Staff. "Jr. Staff" is a euphamism for free labor. My sister and I and one other girl, Pam, washed dishes three times a day. The kitchen wasn't air conditioned or even well venthilated. In those days, we had no machine other than the sink. It was a triple sink. The first held soapy water, the next rinse water. The third sink held water made blue by sanitizing tablets and kept hot by a gas flame underneath. We wore plastic aprons that literally melted in front of the third sink. I have never worked in such sweaty conditions before or since.

The cook that summer seemed so much older than us. John was probably 19. He worked under the head cook, Momma T, who loved him and the three of us girls. After the meal and the campers had cleared out of the mess hall, John pulled a stool into the sweaty kitchen and read to us. We handled the china plates as quietly as possible so we could hang on every word of the V.C. Andrews' "Flowers in the Attic" series. John was a fabulous story teller. We didn't work faster, but the miserable conditions were made much more bearable.

What does this have to do with Meatloaf? (I was jsut wondering that myself.) When John wasn't reading, we listened to his cassette player. Meatloaf was the tape of the summer. We would get into a little rhythm of washing & dipping the dishes to "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth." We would sing "Bat Out of Hell" at the top of our lungs. We would take turns with the parts of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" singing into spoons like microphones.

On road trips I still like to put in that CD, roll down the windows and sing loud. I still have most of the lyrics memorized. It makes me feel 14.

Do you have any good music memories?