I spent this evening doing something I sadly, rarely ever do: tidying up the festooned mess that is my room. My goal is to have guests not say, “You have so MUCH STUFF.” So tonight I’ve been relocating a lot of crap (toys, knick knacks) to the living room. I even found an old artwork (that I forgot I bought at the antique paper fair) which I framed and hung.

Whilst trying to be productive, I revisited some old CDs. And that is why I’m currently stuck in the black hole known as music nostalgia. Looking at my Cure collection, I suddenly wanted to listen to an album that I only had on tape. One thing (YouTubing to hear my favorite tracks on said album) led to another, and before you know it, I’m going to list my top cherished memories of one of my alltime will-always-love favorite bands (in no particular order):

* meeting The Cure at Tower Records in early high school. Susie and I waited forever in line; I remember I kept drawing on my soles to kill the time and muffle my nervous energy. This was during a period when I drew Robert Smith obsessively (preceded by Trent Reznor), so I brought my favorite drawing of him to have him sign it. I thought that I was being original by filling in his depicted mouth with real lipstick. Meeting them was awesome, and I couldn’t have done it without Susie (and her Celica). Having Robert sign my portrait of him was amazing. I only wish I had it still (but I still have my signed copy of Faith!)

* listening to Disintegration on the walkman in the backseat of the car while my family and I were driving somewhere, and helplessly sobbing the whole time. My mom, stepdad, and sister didn’t understand why, and I didn’t either, except that at that very moment, that music was the most emotionally overwhelming and personal to an anguished, angsty teenage me.

* laying in my bunk bed looping Faith again and again, feeling as if I totally “got it,” or rather, they totally “got it” and “got” me.

* having Kiss Me, Kiss me, Kiss Me be the soundtrack to my forays into The Sandman. I’ll always associate The Snakepit with a particular scene in Dream Country.

* feeling with absolute conviction that there were no better, more heartwrenching breakup songs than Letter to Elise and Pictures of You. I think even today I agree.

* figuring out the main chord of Trust on the piano (and not getting very far)

* seeing them for like the fifth time but in MADRID. That was also my first (and only) time in Europe. I’ve seen them seven times total, sometimes with the san hos.

* excitedly owning and wearing out a copy of this book. I couldn’t get enough of it, and I was particularly enchanted with what I thought was the most romantic, honest relationship between Robert Smith and his wife Mary. Did you know she made a cameo in the Just Like Heaven video?

* driving around in my first car with The Top constantly playing in the cassette player. My first ever email account (hotmail) was named after a song on that album.

And that concludes another installment of Jenn Yin’s mawkish TMI.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 6th, 2010 at 11:26 pm and is filed under history, music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.