My earliest memories of music are of NPR’s All Things Considered theme song. It’s not a single memory, but rather an era of my childhood where I heard the theme song so often that the music and the memories seem inseparable. In most of my memories of the tune, it’s golden hour and the sun is setting through the windows of my living room. My dad is cooking in the kitchen around the corner, with the radio blasting at top volume. I never listened to the news, but I could always tell when the theme song was about to come on; there was the chatter of the hosts in their news-people voices, then a pause, and then the instrumental would cut through all the noise with its distinctive blare. Sometimes my sister and I would stop what we were doing to hum along. For her that usually meant she would pause practicing piano on our 66 key keyboard and for me that meant I would stop trying to distract her.
My sister’s piano playing is another early memory of music that I have. Like most little kids, she had a period of time where she could only play with one finger, and during that time “Hot Cross Buns" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" were familiar sounds. However, my sister eventually graduated from children's songs and advanced to 2010s pop songs. The most memorable of all the pop songs she played was her slow and methodical rendition of “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction. The original version is upbeat and catchy–something that my sister’s version was not. In spite of this, I sang along while she played and together we tried unsuccessfully to teach our dad the lyrics. To this day, whenever my dad hears the song, he triumphs over being able to remember a few lines and insists on rehashing how much and how often my sister loved to play it.
At my dad’s request, my sister also learned to play “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” This was the song that my grandfather played for us on his guitar when he came to visit. He kept one of his guitars at our house specifically for moments like these. He would pull it out of its black case, hand decorated with glittery purple stars, and set it on his lap. As he strummed the chords to “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” my sister accompanied him on our plastic keyboard.
I, too, played piano, but for some reason I can’t remember playing it myself as well as I can remember my sister playing it. I mostly just turned on the keyboard setting where the keys lit up in patterns so that I could badly tap out “Happy Birthday” or "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.” Instead, I was more interested in learning about pop music. Because NPR was constantly playing in the background, my family rarely listened to music stations, so I mostly learned songs from my sister or my friends. This led to some memorable moments, like the time my sister and I were obsessed with Katy Perry’s “Firework,” but we didn’t know almost any of the words. Regardless, we sang it nonstop which confused our parents and probably drove them slightly insane. Other memorable moments include the time my sister introduced me to Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” and the music video went way over my head, or the time one of my friends tried in vain to teach me the words to “Love Story” by Taylor Swift, but I had never heard it before. Now when I hear any of these songs, I’m reminded of my childhood and of when music was synonymous with a handful of pop songs, “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” and the NPR theme song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkq5CFGOBH4
