GET IN BEHIND: The theme from A Dog's Show is instantly recognisable decades on. PHOTO/FILE
GET IN BEHIND: The theme from A Dog's Show is instantly recognisable decades on. PHOTO/FILE
IT'S A truth universally accepted that you can't pull weeds out of a garden without music. At least in my universe.
So the Easter tradition of pulling weeds saw the speakers balanced precariously on the windowsill and some old classics dredged up - instantly turning the dreaded chore into a nostalgic trip down memory lane.
Like nothing else, music can transport you back to another moment in time. It can make you feel an emotion, instantly think of a person, an experience or a place you thought you'd left behind.
What are the songs that evoke the best, or worst, memories for you?
I've written before about Yellow. As Coldplay played this song at Wembley Stadium in London, with giant yellow balloons falling from the sky, I had what can only be described as an epiphany. The very next day I quit a job I hated and booked flights to Guatemala, leaving behind a life going nowhere. A few months later, as I sat quietly taking in the Andes on the final night of the Inca Trail, I put my headphones on, pressed shuffle and, like magic, Yellow came on. It was a perfect moment.
Funnily enough, I didn't particularly like the song or the band. It had no particular significance. Now, it's the song that reminds me I can do anything.
To instantly make me smile and dance like no one's watching, Norgaard by The Vaccines and Rizzle Kicks' Down with the Trumpets. New Shoes - or in fact anything at all by Paolo Nutini - transports me back to summer music festivals in Europe wearing floaty dresses and wellingtons and not a worry in the world except which Portaloo to risk. The answer being, to quote a wise friend, "go deep" down the loo line. And always carry wet wipes.
Piano Man by Billy Joel, Rhinestone Cowboy by Glen Campbell, Islands in the Stream by Kenny and Dolly or Boney M's Rivers of Babylon - I am instantly in the back of a Ford Fairmont feeling car sick as we head away on family holidays. I'm singing all the words while bickering with my brother, playing licence plate cricket and whingeing "how much longer?"
The sweet nostalgia of embarrassment and happiness of your boyfriend dedicating a song to you on your high school radio station - that dubious honour goes to With or Without You by U2. Just what he was trying to say, who knows, but it always makes me smile - and squirm a little.
And surely there's not a single Kiwi of a certain age that didn't have Loyal or Why Does Love do This to Me? or April Sun in Cuba as the soundtrack to a coming of age moment.
Do do do do do do do do do do do do do (and repeat). Recognise it? Sunday nights 6pm, we'd hear it and go running to the TV. It was the theme to A Dog's Show - the precursor to Tux Wonder Dogs for young'uns out there. It was prime viewing in the Naki.
A quick YouTube search reveals it was a version of a Statler Brothers song, Flowers on the Wall. Apparently, the song was also on the soundtrack to Pulp Fiction but to me it will always mean huddling around a TV, gripped by the drama of a runaway sheep and Jack not getting in behind.
Check it out on YouTube, it's a great tune. If it doesn't get your toe tapping, I don't know what will.
