For me, picking out the right music for any trip in the car is a big deal. I can’t just pick up any old CD willy-nilly and be satisfied. Sometimes, I’ve been known to hunt down a particular album for hours just because I feel it would make the best possible soundtrack for the places I’m about to go in my car.

Tonight, I went with David Crowder Band’s Sunsets and Sushi. It seems like everytime I hear that CD, I’m immediately taken back to 2004 and to very vivid images of friends I knew back then and a Bible study/worship experience I went to back in the day called Ecclesia.

I can hear certain 80’s songs that take me back to my 8th grade dance. I get pictures of me with my yellow square tie and my bad hair dancing with a girl I’d had a crush on but never had the nerve to talk to. A girl I’ve never seen since, whose name was Lucy (and that’s the extent of what I remember about her).

I hear Silent Lucidity by Queensryche and I am immediately back to the Subway on Exeter Road in Germantown next to the Kroger’s I worked in. I was with yet another girl I had a crush on. This time, it was Carly, who just so happened to live a few streets down from me. I think I may have walked by her street a few (hundred) times, hoping to “accidentally” run into her. It never happened. And no, I don’t remember at all what sub I got that day.

I hear All I Want is You by U2 and my mind immediately goes to the movie Reality Bites and the scene where Winona Ryder is desparately trying to find Ethan Hawke and tell him she loves him. And yes, I still have a crush on her even 18 years later.

For me, music conjurs up images in my mind like nothing else, except maybe the smell of rolls fresh out of the oven or burning candles at Christmas.

For those of you who are music nerds like me, what albums or songs bring back the most vivid memories? Where do those songs take you?

Enquiring minds, i.e. me, want to know.