Music & Memory: Play It Again…North!

Los Angeles: November 17, 2025.

Today is a milestone day for me, and I am indulging myself by writing something personal on this, my 75^th birthday! Yup, three quarters of a century on this planet…sigh. I started thinking about writing something like this almost a year ago, when I was in Stratford, Ontario, helping my brother celebrate his 70^th birthday (our birthdays are two days apart), thinking, hmm, next year I’m going to be…That’s about as far as I got, but the seed, so to speak, was planted. I had no idea back then what I wanted to say, or even why I wanted to say it, but it was in the back of my head, and you know what that’s like.

The “event,” for lack of a better word, that helped me to be able to sit down in front of my computer this morning, was the decision to do something for myself to mark this momentous occasion, and that was to go back to school. I had already done this once before in my life at the age of 34, going back to university after a 17-year hiatus, initially to take a few courses just to see if I had it in me. As it turned out, that re-introduction to the world of academia and education lasted 34 years, until I retired in 2018. When I started to think about what I wanted to do, I realized that I missed being in an environment where learning was taking place, so I enrolled at one of the community colleges in Los Angeles to take a course on the history of rock, pop, and soul music. In other words, a course on the history of my youth. At the beginning of the course, the instructor said that we would be spending a great deal of time in the 60s and 70s, and I thought, perfect!

The idea of writing about music and memory popped (pun intended!) into my head during a class last month when the instructor was talking about some of the music that followed what is now known as the “British Invasion,” and she proceeded to play the following songs:

“Glad All Over” – The Dave Clark 5 – 1964

“Paint It Black” – The Rolling Stones – 1966

“Do You Want To Know A Secret” – 1963 (Written and also recorded by the Beatles)

“I Go to Pieces – Peter & Gordon – 1964

“Sunshine of Your Love” – Cream – 1967

“For Your Love” – The Yardbirds – 1965

“You Really Got Me” – The Kinks – 1964

“Won’t Get Fooled Again – The Who – 1971

What struck me, almost immediately, while this iconic music was filling the room, was that I am listening to songs that were released when I was between the ages of 13-21, and that I hadn’t heard many of them in at least 50 years or more, yet here I was not only recognizing the songs after a few notes being played but also being able to sing along word for word for the entire song! I sat their wondering: “How the &^%& is that even possible?”

There has been a great deal of research into this kind of phenomenon, demonstrating how music and memory have a “deep-seated connection. Songs and melodies can serve as auditory ‘post it’ notes, helping us remember significant events or information,” which is the purvey of neuroscience, the scientific study of the nervous system, including the brain, spinal cord, and the various nerve networks in the body. Music engages various areas of the brain, including those associated with “memory and emotion,” like the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. There have been many studies showing that “music doesn’t just help us retrieve stored memories, it also helps lay down new ones.” A specific tune connected to an event or information forms a kind of soundtrack, which, when replayed, can spark a recollection.

In thinking about this, it struck me that there may be other kinds of “stimulus” or even objects that might be able to trigger past memories. For example, with my dad it was cars. He had this uncanny ability, when asked if he remembered something from the past, to associate the memory with what car he had at that time, and he was always right! I fondly remember being blown away by this when I was younger, but in retrospect it makes sense, as he was a travelling salesman for most of his adult life, and his vehicles were more than just a way to get from A to B.

The phenomenon mentioned above regarding musical memories has seen application in helping dementia patients, because memory loss is a significant symptom of dementia, affecting a person’s ability to recall past events or learn new information. Remarkably, music therapy has emerged as a valuable tool to prompt recall among these individuals.

What struck me when I was pondering all this, is that the period of music that I am remembering in such exacting detail while taking this class is tied to a very specific time in my life, from my early teens to my mid-twenties – 13-25 (1963-1975), to be exact. While I certainly do have some memories of music I have heard and listened to on a regular basis after this period, I would be hard pressed to remember them in as much detail as the years mentioned above, let alone sing along word for word.

The music world has definitely changed in so many ways from those early years when I first became musically aware, given the evolution of musical genres, and, of course, technology. I have to say, I chuckled to myself somewhat when the instructor was talking in one class about the A side and B side of records, and as I looked around the room I could see some puzzled looks – A? B? Sides? What the hell is she talking about? Want to experiment? Give a 13-year-old today a rotary phone and just sit back to be amused!

All of which brings me to the second part of music and memory. While I am not the only “older” person enrolled in this class, although I am definitely the oldest by at least 40+ years, the majority of the students in the class of 50 are either 18 or 19. To put that in perspective, most of these kids’ parents hadn’t been born when this music was released. Let that sink in! So, it was with some surprise when I was paired with one of these students to work on a short in-class presentation on Sam Cooke, that this particular young man knew more about Cooke than I did, not to mention also singing along to the songs being played. My immediate thought was: “How is this even possible?” And right then, I knew I needed to find out the answer to this question. So after we finished our presentation I asked if I could interview him about this. His response was “Sure, if it means I get to talk about music, I’m in.”

Meet Josue Hernandez, born in Los Angeles, April of 2007, to Mexican immigrants. He attended high school from 2021-2025 and is a first-year student at Los Angeles City College, where he plans to spend this year and next before transferring to UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) to complete his undergraduate degree. He told me that his parents were very influential introducing him to music at a very early age, firstly Mexican music when he was around three and then the Beatles when he was five. When I asked him if he could remember a song that might represent his first musical memory, he responded right away with the Beatles song, “Come Together.” He started playing guitar and bass when he was twelve, and, for the past few years, he has become proficient on the drums as well. When I asked him about his exposure to Mexican music and how that inspired him to research and become very familiar with the music we are listening to in class, he said that his exposure through his parents to “barrio music,” which is not a genre per se, instead referring to various styles of Mexican and Latin music that is popular in urban neighborhoods, was the starting point for his wanting to immerse himself in the music of the past.  Often this barrio music reflects a call to action or to protest, and he said that he recognized similar subject matter in American and European music, which was a key factor for him wanting to learn more about this music.

I asked him about some of the music of today that he listens to, and he gave me a list of names of which I knew absolutely none.

My take away from all of this is that while music and memory are still reflective of a specific time in one’s formative years, the amount of music now available for today’s youth to create memories has expanded exponentially because of the various technological advancements, like streaming services for example, making music from previous eras much more accessible. All of which make it possible to recall “memories” in a very different way than was available to someone my age. Lastly, here is a playlist of the eight songs mentioned above.

Los Angeles 2025