I was driving home the other day when I saw a billboard declaring that Radiohead was coming to Austin. My first reaction was along the lines of, "Awww, existence was so simple when I adored them." Which slowly morphed into, "Wow, that was a great time in my life." By the time I got back, memories of listening to
OK Computer and
In Rainbows were making me nostalgic enough to check on tickets. It was surprising to realize that I was actually upset upon discovering they were sold out.
I immediately associate Thom Yorke with my first real boyfriend. Radiohead was the soundtrack to our relationship, which defined years of my life and escorted out my era as a teenager. I can't hear "Paranoid Android" without remembering summer drives singing along together, him taking breaks to halfheartedly lecture me for putting my feet out the window. Thom Yorke is nights sneaking onto a school campus and lying on the grass, talking about topics that seemed deep to a eighteen-year-old. He is muffled walks through winter snows, from which my boyfriend and I would retreat to find "Exit Music (For a Film)" and tea waiting at home.
In Rainbows is discovering the joys of marijuana, as teenagers are wont to do (this is a phase I feel obligated to admit has passed). It's getting stoned and lying in bed with someone who loves you. It's cuddling there and thinking that those lyrics
totally apply to your relationship. It's thinking that you have something great, something that love songs are made of. "I'd be crazy not to follow/follow where you lead"; our lives were going to sync up, to work out, right?
We stayed up all night to get good tickets to the
In Rainbows tour, waiting for hours in a cold neither noticed. Months later we got Thai food at our favorite restaurant and then watched the show together, joined by a feeling of something bigger and more grandiose than ourselves. We were inspired, we were in love and we were going to be together forever.
Except we weren't.
Things happen, young adults change and then it was over. While we have both moved on, listening to Thom croon about abstract ideas and concrete emotions triggers a nostalgia in me. Some remember their first loves with spite, some with fondness. I remember mine with the latter, and, of course, with Radiohead.
Do you have a song that instantly transports you to a place in your past, leaving you laughing, crying, or more?
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