Memories and melodies: ABJ readers share tales of special songs
Music has a magical power to transport listeners to another time and place.
Certain songs trigger vivid memories. Decades later, people recall what they were doing when they heard them.
We asked readers to share the titles of songs that remind them of specific moments in their lives. Their responses were funny, poignant, strange, ironic and entirely relatable.
Let’s listen.
Guess who?
“My certain song is ‘These Eyes’ by The Guess Who,” Macedonia resident Nancy Dye explained. “It starts off with the lyrics: ‘These eyes cry every night for you.’ My first love and fiance John didn’t have the courage to tell me in person that it was over between us. He told my mother, who in turn told me. I was naturally devastated. I went over to his house to get answers and ‘These Eyes’ was playing on the radio.
“Fast-forward 50 years. John was driving by my mother’s house one day last year and saw a car in her driveway. He took the chance and knocked on the door hoping I was there. I was and he apologized for the way he had treated me. We still keep in touch.”
Speak of the devil
Greg Santos remembers going to see “The Exorcist” on the big screen at the Akron Civic Theatre in the mid-1970s. Afterward, things got weird.
“I started my car and ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ by The Rolling Stones came on the radio,” he said. “As I started up Main Street, a black cat ran across the road in front of me. Definitely a haunting experience.”
Years earlier while working at a summer camp, Santos remembers taking a night off with other counselors. They piled into a car, turned on the radio and heard The Stones’ “Satisfaction.”
“For five or six times that I pushed a button at the end of the song, ‘Satisfaction’ came on each radio station in a row,” he recalled.
Sit back and relax
“Here is a song I remember hearing,” Akron resident Pete Kalgreen said. “I was sitting in a dentist chair, nervously waiting for the numbing injection to kick in, when their office music played ‘King Of Pain’ by The Police.”
Another one gone
In the soundtrack of life, David Axson remembers a specific song.
“The most evocative memory is driving away from my wedding reception in 1985, when Queen’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ came on the car radio,” he wrote. “Not sure if it was meant for me or my wife of 38 years, Donna. I plan to have the same song playing at my funeral.”
Talking about ‘My Girl’
There’s a Motown song that always makes Mark Wisberger smile.
“We are almost always in our car, listening to the ’60s channel, when the distinctive ‘boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom’ of the electric guitar starts the song,” he wrote. “I take my wife Maryann’s hand even before the sharp snapping of fingers begins, followed by the line, ‘I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day.’
“I am not naive enough to believe I am the only guy who associates The Temptations’ ‘My Girl’ with his significant other. David Ruffin sang this song long before Maryann and I met, but it will always have a significant meaning to me/us.”
Calm after the storm
Tim Riedinger finds an inspirational message in “Crystal Blue Persuasion” by Tommy James and The Shondells. It reminds him of a summer evening in 1969 on Oxford Avenue in Akron.
“My mom, dad, younger brother and sister and I were sheltered in our North Hill basement during a severe storm as it passed through Akron,” Riedinger wrote. “It was the only time I recall having needed to protect ourselves as a family that way, hearing high winds, driving rain and thunder outside and seeing lightning flashes through the narrow basement windows near the ceiling above us.
“The storm slowly dissipated when station WAKR sounded an ‘all clear’ on our transistor. Next came ‘Crystal Blue Persuasion’ on that radio with its references to green fields, sun and light adding comfort to the calm outside.”
Whenever he hears that song — usually from his Spotify playlist — he remembers that evening and thinks about his family’s deliverance from the 1969 storm.
“I’ll probably never know whether WAKR chose that song just for that moment (likely not), but it is still a blessing to hear, just as it was back then,” he wrote.
In memory of Maggie
Copley resident Merle Lynn recalls picking up the West Side Leader in May 2010 and seeing a photo of a rescue dog.
“It was not a flattering picture, but she was the right age (14 months) and size (small),” Lynn wrote. “She was at Haven for Pets in Richfield. I made an appointment to meet her. Her name was Maggie Mae.
“During my drive north on Cleveland-Massillon Road, Rod Stewart’s song ‘Maggie May’ came on the radio. I took that as a good sign I would take her home.
“Maggie was a sweet dog with a big personality. She loved people and tolerated the cats. She stole my heart.
“She died Dec. 28, 2022. Seven weeks before her 14th birthday. I will always think of her when I hear Rod Stewart sing ‘Maggie May.’ ”
Under the radar
The Golden Earring song “Radar Love” transports Mary Armbruster back to 1975.
“I was 16 years old,” she recalled. “My high school sweetheart and I cruised through the valley in Cuyahoga Falls in his 1968 Chevelle listening to his 8-track! We were so in love and still are together. We’ve been married for 48 years now.”
She and Martin Armbruster got married in October 1975. Decades later, they bought another 1968 Chevelle and still love to cruise the valley and listen to “Radar Love.”
“I can still go back to the times we cruised together ‘half past 4 and I’m shifting gears!’ ” she wrote.
Lyrics that hit home
Jo Stafford had a big hit in 1952 with the song “You Belong to Me.” Its lyrics include: “Fly the ocean in a silver plane. See the jungle when it’s wet with rain. Just remember till you’re home again. You belong to me.”
Uniontown resident Mary M. Moore could relate all too well.
“In 1952, my husband was in the Army and flew overseas,” she recalled. “I remember shortly after he left, hearing the song ‘Fly the ocean in a silver plane, just remember you belong to me.’ I’m 90 years old now and it seems like yesterday.”
That boy was dreamy
The song “Johnny Angel” by Shelley Fabares reminds Sandra DiPaola Alger of a special boy at Ravenna High School in 1961-1962. John, a freshman basketball player, was her secret crush — her “Johnny Angel.”
As a cub reporter for the school newspaper, she was assigned to write a trend story about students who wore contact lenses.
“I had never really seen him until the day of the interview,” Alger wrote. “In he walks! Confident! Tall! Blonde! Gorgeous blue eyes! And a smile that would knock your socks off! I remember gulping and, yes, I felt my face get red. I was nervous, thankful that I had my questions written down, and in spite of being jittery inside, extremely happy that I had drawn this assignment.”
When the shy reporter asked the 14-year-old if he had ever had any mishaps with contact lenses, he casually mentioned that he once forgot to wash his hands after applying aftershave and it made his eye sting.
“Oh, my gosh, I thought in my sophomore mind, he shaves!! Wow!”
That boy was so dreamy. She never did reveal her crush in high school, but she will never forget how she felt the day they met. She can still feel the butterflies in her stomach the moment that he walked into the room.
“When I hear that song, I can’t help but be that young girl again crushing on a very special boy,” Alger wrote. “My Johnny Angel.”
In tune with the times
Richard Champion has rapid-fire memories of specific songs:
“Our Day Will Come,” Ruby and the Romantics: “Akron in what I thought was a simpler time … until delivering the BJ on West Hill the day Kennedy was shot. Hands, jacket, shirt black with ink from the zillion point headline.”
“Tighten Up,” Archie Bell & The Drells: “My bed and desk in a room that I rented in the Bronx my first year at Fordham. The school was 90% commuter then. ’Twas a lonely time.”
“MacArthur Park,” Richard Harris. “The song was everywhere in the Bronx. You could not escape it. Clueless as to the reason so many teen girls were besotted with it.”
“Midnight at the Oasis,” Maria Muldaur. “It always seemed to be the song I would wake up to on the clock radio in my room during the spring of my first year of law school. Muldaur sang ‘Send your camel to bed.’ Archie Bell repeatedly told me to tighten up. Muldaur repeatedly told me to relax.”
60 candles
Phil Bogdanoff, 67, recalls driving to Wasabi in Montrose seven years ago to celebrate his 60th birthday with his wife, three sons and their girlfriends. On the radio, he heard the Lukas Graham song “7 Years” for the first time.
Its lyrics include: “Soon I’ll be 60 years old, my daddy got 61. Remember life and then your life becomes a better one. I made a man so happy when I wrote a letter once. I hope my children come and visit once or twice a month.”
Every time he hears it now, he turns 60 again.
“Never forget the song or that ride to Montrose,” Bogdanoff wrote.
Down on the corner
Dale Ryba didn’t think of one specific song. He thought of a whole slew of them. All by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
“Bad Moon Rising.” “Proud Mary.” “Green River.” “Born on the Bayou.” “Down on the Corner.” “Fortunate Son.”
“I think that after smells, music may be the strongest trigger of memories,” Ryba wrote. “Anything from ’69 by CCR. I was a Warrant Officer candidate training to be a helicopter pilot at Fort Wolters, Texas. CCR seemed to be THE choice on the NCO club jukebox.”
The endless night
Wadsworth resident Devere Beach, 82, who worked 53 years in security and another 10 years in food management, traveled many nights with his elbow out the car window, listening to music on the radio.
In 1966, he and his girlfriend borrowed his boss’ 1966 Dodge Hemi and went for a drive. The Ral Donner song “I Wish This Night Would Never End” came on, perfectly summing up Beach’s feelings. In a way, that night never did end because he can still picture it clearly.
Another time, he noticed a staccato rhythm as he drove on a rainy night.
“I told my girlfriend the windshield wiper tapped out a tune while driving,” Beach wrote. “She thought I was out of tune!”
He felt totally vindicated in 1980 when Eddie Rabbitt released the hit song “Drivin’ My Life Away” with the lyrics: “Those windshield wipers slappin’ out a tempo. Keepin’ perfect rhythm with the song on the radio.”
Good, good Leroy Brown
Jim Croce had a big hit in 1973 with “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” Linda Hayden thought it was goofy, but her husband, Chuck, absolutely loved it.
“Every time he heard it in the car, he sang along loudly and joyfully!” she recalled. “He later owned a scrapyard and had two ‘junkyard dogs.’ ”
Chuck passed away in 1991 after battling cancer, and his wife changed her tune on “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.”
“Now when I hear the song, I also sing along, recalling those special years and knowing that he loved that song till the end!” Hayden wrote.
Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com
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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron Beacon Journal readers share memories of special songs
