Remember the first time you heard a song?

[Folder]

I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana.

 

I was sitting in my car on lunch break listening to the Georgia State University college radio station "88.5 FM".

I remember wondering "who is this band?" and when it was over I wanted to hear it again.

 

I had no idea who it was or what it was called and I didn't hear it again until a few weeks later when I heard it on a commercial radio station.

When I heard it again I immediately recognized it as "that song" I had heard a few weeks earlier.

 

Within days it seems like it was all over the radio and we all know what happened next.

 

Are their any songs that had such an impact on you that you can remember the very first time you heard them?

[Lee Knight]

Oh yeah... well, Teen Spirit, I'd just moved from California to Wisconsin. A shock of a change. I was 30 and going to college (Columbia in Chicago) after retiring from being a professional musician since I was 16. I'd hung it up. I was driving through Kenosha thinking WTF have I done?!?!? Then Teen Spirit came on. What? Is? That? I wanted to move home and start up another band, write songs, get another deal!!! I loved it.

 

But, 1972. I was 12. 7th grade at St. John the Baptist. A friend had convinced our nun/teacher to let us use the class record player during recess. We're alone and he pulls out Alice Cooper's School's Out. Now, that vinyl came wrapped in woman's panties. I was twelve. I was Catholic! I was intrigued. He went right to the song School's Out. This was June. SCHOOL WAS ALMOST EFFING OUT FOR SUMMER!!!

 

I've never been the same. I love women's panties. A love ROCK!

[rasputin1963]

It was 1978. In the dead cold of a Texas winter, I drove to the Harry & Joe Freeman Coliseum where the annual Stock Show & Rodeo was being held, to meet some people to stroll the adjoining carnival/rides/sideshow. When I arrived, it was a blue-pink twilight, the parking lot was full and it took me ages to find a parking spot. When I finally parked, in the steamy warmth of the car, fended from the 25degreeF cold, I smoked a puff or two from a lefthanded cigarette, and on the radio, tuned to KEXL, a 70's-style "underground" FM station, that crystalline no-static-at-all sound of stereo FM, hippies gone mainstream, a sound still new and thrilling in the mid-70's, or new to me, they played Lou Reed's "Take A Walk On The Wild Side". I just sat there alone, absolutely mesmerized by that solemn recording... its lyrics offhand, street-hip, world-weary and somehow profoundly sad... those guitar chords slurring in a stupid, sad ostinato between C-major and F-major, as if those two chords were the only it could wearily muster. That amazing way the "doop-do-doop" girls starts cloaked in deepest reverb then pulls itself into naked clarity; Bowie's ingenious, sad, mocking sax solo. I was moved beyond compare. I could tell that the gospel girls in the background were alluding somehow to Motown and soul hits of the 60's... a comment upon a comment.... I just ached all over, not unpleasantly, the way music can do. The emotion in this song was real, not contrived. All my teenage anxieties seemed understood by this song, and I felt bound to every human in pain. To this day, that single ranks in my top ten favorite records ever.

[yumpy]

[h=2]Remember the first time you heard a song?[/h]

wtf does that mean?

 

really, wtf?

 

i was 35 when i heard stevie wonder for the first time in 66'.

 

before that it was all noise.

 

 

 

[RockViolin]

The first time I heard "Post Toastie" by Tommy Bolin I was 14 and had just dashed out of the house and leapt into some dude's van to go to a kegger out in the country somewhere. Soon we were rollin down the highway and the ultimate 'rollin down the highway in a van' music came on. I asked what it was and they said, "Post Toastie by Tommy Bolin!" I became a Bolin fan right there. If you are ever in a van, going down the highway, especially in the midwest, and you are also listening to Tommy Bolin's "Post Toastie" you will smile and you will understand. "Bustin Out For Rosie" is good too!

 

So many songs I heard for the first time strolling down the hall of 2nd floor Moore dorm at the North Carolina School of the Arts. I'd be walking by someone's room and would hear some incredible organ music followed by "I get uuuuup....I get dowwwwwn". Had to knock and go in and check it out..and well, you know.

[rasputin1963]

[h=2]Remember the first time you heard a song?[/h]

wtf does that mean?

 

really, wtf?

 

 

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure that Folder knew that a forum header is a place to be as succint as possible, because:

 

a). In the old forum, anyway, the webpage layout would cut off from vision all but the first six words you print, and

b). For some reason, it's the bluntest questions that attract the most attention/response here; wordy/busy ones too often get ignored, and

c). Folder was definitely trying to get us to dig back, maybe even to toddler-hood, into some very old memories.

 

...or maybe not. philthumb

[Folder]

 

 

I'm pretty sure that Folder knew that a forum header is a place to be as succint as possible, because:

 

a). In the old forum, anyway, the webpage layout would cut off from vision all but the first six words you print, and

b). For some reason, it's the bluntest questions that attract the most attention/response here; wordy/busy ones too often get ignored, and

c). Folder was definitely trying to get us to dig back, maybe even to toddler-hood, into some very old memories.

 

...or maybe not. philthumb

 

Maybe I should have said:

Do you remember the first time you ever heard a "particular" song or Are there any songs that you remember where you where and what you were doing the first time you heard them? but I think people have figured out what I meant.

 

Another song I remember the first time I ever heard was Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes.

 

I was playing my electric guitar with the radio on and during the commercials I was strumming an A chord.

When the DJ came back on the air he said this is the new song by Yes.

 

The moment the song started with that big A chord I happened to play a distorted A chord and instinctively followed the riff as it played over the radio.

While I was playing it I thought the DJ must have made a mistake. This couldn't be Yes. It didn't sound anything like Yes but I thought it was cool and kept playing it.

Then Jon Anderson's voice came out over the speaker's and I thought, "Wow this really is Yes".

I pretty much had the song completely figured out before it was over. Of course it's a very simple song. Especially for Yes.

[blue2blue]

It was 1978. In the dead cold of a Texas winter' date=' I drove to the Harry & Joe Freeman Coliseum where the annual Stock Show & Rodeo was being held, to meet some people to stroll the adjoining carnival/rides/sideshow. When I arrived, it was a blue-pink twilight, the parking lot was full and it took me ages to find a parking spot. When I finally parked, in the steamy warmth of the car, fended from the 25degreeF cold, I smoked a puff or two from a lefthanded cigarette, and on the radio, tuned to KEXL, a 70's-style "underground" FM station, that crystalline no-static-at-all sound of stereo FM, hippies gone mainstream, a sound still new and thrilling in the mid-70's, or new to me, they played Lou Reed's "Take A Walk On The Wild Side". I just sat there alone, absolutely mesmerized by that solemn recording... its lyrics offhand, street-hip, world-weary and somehow profoundly sad... those guitar chords slurring in a stupid, sad ostinato between C-major and F-major, as if those two chords were the only it could wearily muster. That amazing way the "doop-do-doop" girls starts cloaked in deepest reverb then pulls itself into naked clarity; Bowie's ingenious, sad, mocking sax solo. I was moved beyond compare. I could tell that the gospel girls in the background were alluding somehow to Motown and soul hits of the 60's... a comment upon a comment.... I just ached all over, not unpleasantly, the way music can do. The emotion in this song was real, not contrived. All my teenage anxieties seemed understood by this song, and I felt bound to every human in pain. To this day, that single ranks in my top ten favorite records ever.[/quote']It took you six years after its release to hear that song?

 

Holy cow!

 

I certainly remember the head-slapping delight when I first heard the chorus come in on "Walk"... pure genius.

 

 

I have a pretty good memory for 'first time hearings' I guess we might say. I'm one to sit in a car with the radio on -- sometimes through a couple other songs and even commercials -- to find out what something is. (Or at least I was. I don't bother with terrestrial radio much, anymore, except for the local public affairs station and, occasionally my local jazz station, KKJZ.)

 

Possibly one of the most central of those experiences was a day in '75 when I heard Patti Smith's "Horses" on the local once-progressive FM station (a last burst of progressiveness before they retreated to total dinosaur play, they also apparently played the Sex Pistols once).

 

But that day in '75, hearing that wildly exotic and artistically ambitious poem/song, I knew that the musical sea change I'd been waiting for was finally almost at hand.

[RockViolin]

It took you six years after its release to hear that song?

 

Holy cow!

 

I certainly remember the head-slapping delight when I first heard the chorus come in on "Walk"... pure genius.

 

 

I have a pretty good memory for 'first time hearings' I guess we might say. I'm one to sit in a car with the radio on -- sometimes through a couple other songs and even commercials -- to find out what something is. (Or at least I was. I don't bother with terrestrial radio much, anymore, except for the local public affairs station and, occasionally my local jazz station, KKJZ.)

 

Possibly one of the most central of those experiences was a day in '75 when I heard Patti Smith's "Horses" on the local once-progressive FM station (a last burst of progressiveness before they retreated to total dinosaur play, they also apparently played the Sex Pistols once).

 

But that day in '75, hearing that wildly exotic and artistically ambitious poem/song, I knew that the musical sea change I'd been waiting for was finally almost at hand.

 

"Horses". Another song I first heard in somebody else's dorm room. He turned me on to Television too. The guy was into burning himself with Camel straights, and cutting himself with Exacto blades! He never did it in front of me though. His art was really cool, and we became great friends. Later on he was my best man, actually. Anyway, luvs me some Patti Smith. "Aaaaah skaaaa"!

[Another Brick]

The first time I heard "Take Me to the River"' I was at the Colorado River.

[sailorman]

Clearly remember the first time I heard 'In the Court of the Crimson King'. I was jamming at a party, '69 or '70. Someone put that on the stereo and I was entranced, just had to find out what it was. Took me a few days until I described it to one of my buddies, "something about a Crimson King". He put it on his stereo and solved the mystery for me.

[nat whilk II]

I remember a whole bunch of first-time-heard song experiences.

 

In late 1967 the radio had been putting out teasers for days that the new Beatle album Magical Mystery Tour was going to be released on such-and-such day, so on that day we kept the radio on all day, just waiting. FINALLY late in the afternoon, I was in the kitchen by the radio/intercom speaker and heard the title track. Must have been the weekend or a snow day....this was the album after Sgt Pepper's, so the whole world was on pins and needles for this one. The title track seemed a little odd - a lot like the intro to Sgt. Pepper, yeah, and the vocals seemed unusually and extremely high and trebley in places....I knew I had to get a few more listens under my belt before I could decide how I felt about it. Didn't change my world on the first time though.

 

But the first cut, first side, of the first Led Zeppelin album was a total knockout. My brother brought the album home right when it came out - I had never heard of these guys. The radio certainly never played any of it - this was before progressive FM stations, or at least in Tulsa where we were at the time. The rock world was just getting into the big heavy booming rock sound and out of the scratchy, jangly, rackety rock sound and this first Zeppelin album was like everything we wanted big rock to be but hadn't quite heard yet.

 

I remember the first time I heard the Moog lead on Lucky Man, we were staying a hotel having just moved (again) and I was checking out the local radio stations - what a powerful tone, even on AM. And the first time I ever heard Eric Satie's Gymnopedies - dorm roommate had a "best of" Satie album - instant appeal, so poignant and simple and exotic all at once.

 

First time I ever heard Pat Metheny was in the early 80s on a transatlantic flight to London. The headphone entertainment included a jazz station and I heard "Yolanda, You Learn" from First Circle and had to know who the artist was. Wrote it down on something and bought the album when we got back home.

 

A big first impression doesn't always lead to a lasting impression, sadly. My favorite stuff, most of it I grew into over time I think.

 

nat whilk ii

 

[yumpy]

oh, ok. i was so confused!

 

back in the early 70's, my friend and i went to visit his brother at his harvard dorm.

 

he gave us some smoke and said he had to go out. we were pretty baked and he said, listen to this and left. (killer stereo too)

 

it was jefferson starship, "blows against the empire". starting with "sunrise".

 

whoa! still one of my fav lp's.

[Folder]

I was ten or eleven years old and riding in a friend's father's pickup truck and we were going on a weekend retreat to YMCA Camp Waco in northwest Georgia. I had seen an eight track player before but I had never seen one in a pickup truck.

 

At the time my record collection consisted of "The Partridge Family Album" and several yellow forty fives by my favorite band the "Banana Splits" that I had gotten by sending in a bunch of box tops from Kellogg's cereal boxes.

 

My friend put in a tape and I heard a loud distorted guitar blast out of the left speaker.

 

The tape was called Led Zeppelin II and I remember thinking that this must be some kind of hippie music. I thought maybe this music was not appropriate for grammar school aged kids but I was stuck in the truck and it was going to be a long ride so I figured I had no choice but to listen to it.

 

Within minutes I was totally captivated by the blasting bluesy guitars, soulful moaning vocals, swirling psychedelic sounds and hard driving beat.

 

I had never heard anything like it and I loved it.

 

A few days later an older kid in the neighborhood showed me the album cover and said you really need to listen to this on headphones. I had never listened to any music on headphones before and I remember being absolutely thrilled when I heard Jimmy Page's guitar zoom across from the left to the right side during the chorus to "Whole Lotta Love".

 

After a few weeks I had saved enough money to go out and buy the album for myself. My parents had one of those console stereos that sat in the living room like a piece of furniture. The console stereo didn't have a headphone jack so I sat on the floor right in front of the speakers to get the full stereo effect.

 

A couple of minutes later my dad came running into the living room and asked what that loud terrible racket was. I showed him the album cover and said it was my new Led Zeppelin album. He told me that I was not under any circumstances ever allowed to play any of that god awful hippie music on his stereo.

 

That was the day that I learned that my father and I didn't have the same taste in music.

 

It was also the day I started saving for my first stereo and set of headphones.

[rasputin1963]

It took you six years after its release to hear that song?

 

Holy cow!

 

.

 

I think that song was considered plenty outré for South Texas in the 70's, and it was the daring DJ who decided to play it, so it didn't get "steady" airplay at all. I listen now to a radio show on LUXURIA RADIO that plays real "airchecks" from real 1960's radio stations, all over the nation. It's now being driven home to me, 40, 50 years later, that, in the 1960's and 1970's, other American radio stations were playing songs--- which they considered big hits--- which never saw the light of day in South Texas. Texas has always been a macho, conservative state, and songs overtly about sex and drugs, or songs too far afield from predictability--- I now realize--- were all but banned here. The luckiest American listeners in the 1960's were Los Angelenos, who were blessed with radio stations who'd play absolutely anything and everything.

[Lee Knight]

I was 12 and driving with my mom through our suburban L. A. streets on some errand or another. Listening to the AM when on comes Frankenstein by The Edgar Winter Group. What is THAT?!?!?!? They Only Come Out At Night was the first album I bought with my own coin and that was the very next day.

 

BTW, I remember where we were in our driving, That was 42 years ago. I remember what I was seeing looking out the window of our car. That moment of What Is That?!?!??! is imprinted very clearly on my mind. I could literally drive up to West Covina right now and go to that very spot. Just a freeway underpass from north of I-10 to the south of it. I picture that spot whenever I hear that tune still.

[WRGKMC]

I grew up 70 miles from NYC so I heard all the music that wound up being hits across the country. It was all AM radio in the beginning for rock music until the change over to FM in the 70's. FM was all classical and elevator music in the 60's, likely because it was the older generation that could afford good FM radios and the broadcast signals were mostly local suburbia stations.

 

As I got older and started traveling quite a bit, I'd drive down to places like Florida and they were at least 5 years behind on music that was popular in the NE. I saw the same thing happen when I moved to Houston, but less dramatic. The internet has pretty much changed the way radio stations dominated the market places and with satellite radio you can pretty much tune in any genre you want.

 

As far as the first songs go, I guess most of what I heard was during the 60's on the radio which covered all kinds of genres. We'd even get some cool bus drivers who would play rock tunes on the grade school bus so I cant even date how far back I've heard many of the older Motown tunes, Beatles and Stones. They were surely #1 hits of the time I was hearing.

 

There were many tunes I heard for the first time played by live bands that stuck with me and can clearly remember where I was. I can remember many of the early albums I bought. I had older siblings so I got to hear allot of contemporary pop as it came out including a bunch of 50's stuff. The first album purchase I made (Which that wasn't a gift) was Rubber Soul.

Grand Funk On Time was another so it had to be 198 and 1969 when I began building my album collection. I had already been playing guitar for 3 years by then. Still have my entire album collection that dates back that far. Even the scratches on those albums are memorable.

[Beck]

I remember the first time I heard “You can’t Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd ” by Roger Miller. It was a Saturday morning at my Unlce Bob’s farm in western Illinois. My Aunt Cindy was picking sugar ants (Camponotus consobrinus) out of the Rice Krispies, but I still refused to eat any. I mean, they’re so small she could have missed one or two. I was 6.

[BushmasterM4]

One memorable moment for me was at age 14 or 15. I was at a HS graduation block party and the guy throwing it had just set up a huge pa system. The first song that came out was "Runnin With The Devil" ... Talk about a shocking moment. Those blarring sirens and opening bass/high hat count in !!! Then the guitar playing and vocals !!! I had never heard of VanHalen and the first album had just been released. Then to the opposite extreme, another is first time hearing Frank Zappa "Over-night Sensation" let alone the damn album cover !!! Been a few moments for me. My first exposure to "Alice Cooper" was Billion Dollar Babies (another classic), that was another eye opener, coming from a kid how watched the Monkees and the Archies !!!

[Lee Knight]

One memorable moment for me was at age 14 or 15. I was at a HS graduation block party and the guy throwing it had just set up a huge pa system. The first song that came out was "Runnin With The Devil" ... Talk about a shocking moment. Those blarring sirens and opening bass/high hat count in !!! Then the guitar playing and vocals !!! I had never heard of VanHalen and the first album had just been released. Then to the opposite extreme' date=' another is first time hearing Frank Zappa "Over-night Sensation" let alone the damn album cover !!! Been a few moments for me. My first exposure to "Alice Cooper" was Billion Dollar Babies (another classic), that was another eye opener, coming from a kid how watched the Monkees and the Archies !!![/quote']

 

Ha! Me too. I was at my cousin's and he showed me the VH1 cover. I thought, "oh brother". All the chest hair and crotchy bag o' sweets. No thanks. Then that first tune started playing and... oh!

[AlamoJoe]

Ok...And I don't care how many guffaws I harvest. The first tine I remember really hearing music...Was in my Granpas parlor..such as it was...Through his handbuilt High Fidelty system, was the soundtrack to the movie "The Alamo". Yeah, the one by John Wayne, the composer was Dimitri Tomikin. That is what got me interested me in music. Then I heard "Twist and Shout" and everything changed....forever...

t