Published on 12, July, 2020
This morning I heard Faith by George Michael on the radio and I was instantly reminded with a strong memory of my grandad and his old van. It was a time when I was about 9 and I was in his really old van which was full of strawberries and I remember feeling overwhelmed by the smell of the strawberries.
Every time I hear this song now I get a really vivid flashback of the younger me in the van with him, I can smell the strawberries and I can remember feeling queasy because his van used to vibrate terribly! Motion sickness was a frequent occurrence for me in that van...
Does anyone else get this when you hear certain songs?
I found out at my autism assessment it's a common part of autism.
Every time I hear the song I get this memory. I can picture my Grandad, still smell his deodorant and those dreaded strawberries lol.
Just thought I would share this here, it's an oddly pleasant but weird memory and thing that happens to me.
Weird though because overall I have a dreadful memory.
Thank you for sharing your own experiences. It's so great that this isn't just a me thing. That's a perfectly lovely memory with Fast Car (amazing song too!) and I'm so happy you shared it, I really enjoyed reading about it. I almost felt like I was there with you...
Shardovan said:Then again, the adjacent phenomenon of the Proustian rush seems fairly universal. So… um, dunno.
It's a difficult one isn't it? I can't really make my mind up. I enjoy it though, most of the time, unless it's something that recalls an unpleasant memory, smell or sound.
This happens sometimes which is unfortunate lol.
Thank you again for sharing.
What you’ve said about it being an autistic thing especially to recall in this way is very interesting. I’ve often wondered if a key thing for us is that we might have a greater tendency towards remembering the internally significant (outwardly unremarkable but internally rich) with perhaps even greater fidelity than we might outwardly dramatic ‘and then THIS happened’ stuff.
Then again, the adjacent phenomenon of the Proustian rush seems fairly universal. So… um, dunno.
I know exactly what you mean, and there are quite a few I could list. Two for now…
Whenever I hear Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car, I instantly hallucinate the smell of freshly plained wood blended with the smell of salt and vinegar and chips. And vividly picture sitting in a recently renovated cafe on a rainy day, somewhere between Donegal and Belfast. It was the summer that that song was first out, and my family was travelling home from holiday, stopping in along the way for chips and tea. It’s a lovely cosy memory. I always loved rainy days (still do) and it was just one of those great moments where all of sensory inputs were agreeable if nonetheless strong enough to make a lasting as-if-yesterday memory.
My first ever ear-worm: Heartsong (aka the wonderful theme to Holiday 1981, for that would have been the year) still going round in my head from the night before, and I pondered this phenomenon as I walked with my mum on a lightly sunny day, past the trees that lined the little lane up to playschool. I didn’t talk about this to her, but I can recall the internal process of recognition, puzzlement, and impressed intrigue about this human capacity to replay songs or precise instrumentation of melody (or rather powerless to stop doing so!) that I was now attuned to. Perhaps also wondering when it was going to stop! I can see the exact play of light and shadows, and there’s almost a taste to the air - somewhere between petrichor and the feel of an old sepia-tinted Polaroid.