When I was just starting out in music, I had this funny idea that I thought about a lot. I had noticed that smells, especially rare ones – an unfamiliar brand of soap in the shower of a seldom-visited relative, certain wood smells that some rooms give off, a shampoo on a cute girl’s hair – these seldom-encountered smells could set off an explosion of memories in my mind when I’d come upon them randomly.
So in my mind I started to design a “personal time machine” which would be a wooden box with racks of many sealed test-tubes in it. You’d keep the box in your room. Each test-tube would be a very particular aromatic essence, which you would open for a season, and then seal it again for, say, twenty years. Then, after the time had passed, you could open the test tubes in sequence and go on an insanely intense olfactory tour of your life. It would be better than drugs.
For a while I thought this idea could be a fantastic gift item or toy; maybe I could manufacture Personal Olfactory Time Machines and sell them. But when I thought more carefully about it, I realized that there were two reasons this product could never be sold. First, who wants to buy something which only pays off twenty years later?
Second, we already have this thing and it’s done with sounds instead of smells and they’re called called pop songs.
Gold, a member of The Five One, sent me a really nice e-mail about “Closing Time,” which his band had recently re-interpreted for themselves. He said that the song was almost like family to his band. Here is part of my reply:
“Your comments about ‘Closing Time’ being ‘like family’ are so gratifying to me. Entertaining people is a great way to make a living, but inspiring people and especially other musicians is something way more powerful and meaningful to me. I used to wonder if any of my songs could ever become ‘the’ song of a season or event for somebody, the way ‘Pump It Up’ by Elvis Costello will always bring me back to a weeklong visit I made to a friend in New York when I was eighteen, or “Hey Hey My My” by Neil Young will always put me back in the car I’d drive to my job the summer before that…”
I used to wonder, but now I know: some of my songs have played that part in people’s lives. What a trip.
Still, even if songs are great time travel devices, I still think the Personal Olfactory Time Machine would be cool.
4:38 pm on 8/24/11
I think it stinks…
5:31 pm on 8/24/11
I would buy one! Whenever I walk past street vendors selling incense – especially when they’re burning all varieties at once – I immediately remember the fantastic EMPIRE-RECORDS-ish job I had at a stoner record shop called Quonset Hut after college. Those were fantastic times. Also certain after shaves, etc. in a crowd will give me a quick whiff of an old beau.
I’d like a touch machine too. One of my go-to memories when I’m feeling blue is of lying in the front yard of my childhood home watching the clouds and feeling the really stiff prickly grass on the backs of my arms and legs. I would love to feel that now.
Incidentally, my friend Brian has a theory about capsules of great life moments that he calls “orange circles.” He believes we get 6 of these moments in our life where things just line up into a perfect feeling. I have one that’s tied up with a song. I won’t say which one, because it’s more special if it’s mine alone, but was part of a beautiful moment with friends, etc. seeing a show years ago, and having a realization during a particular song like “hey … remember how this feels right now for later when you feel lonely” etc. To this day, when I hear that on the radio or when it shuffles on iTunes, I am immediately back in that orange circle.
6:54 pm on 8/24/11
You really are creative! I think of stuff like this too but I haven’t found the outlet for it yet. Yes, I experience the past all over again when I hear those songs that impacted me. It could also be the moment that impacts us and the song happens to be playing at that moment, which burns everything into our memory. Music is powerful enough to cement the moment in our essence because of our unexplainable connection to it and dependence upon it.
Keep that creativity rolling!!
8:32 pm on 8/24/11
Nice post! Smells bring me back in time too. And pop songs. Like ‘Closing Time’ reminds me of when I left a job I’d had forever and started a new one. Or ‘Hitchin’ a Ride’ reminds me of coming home from the beach when I was really little in the Chevy Nova. Or ‘American Woman’ reminds me of the first time I really thought a song totally rocked. Everyone’s life has a soundtrack!
7:56 am on 8/25/11
For the record, Dan, playing Semisonic’s entire album Feeling Strangely Fine does this for me. Helped me stay optimistic during the roller coaster ride that was high school!
9:57 pm on 5/30/12
A friend I know told me that she buys two bottles of cologne, one that her mother wore and one that her father wore, so she can smell the scents and remember her parents now that they are gone. My friend happens to be blind and says the colognes are like photographs for her. Smell is powerful sense and like music it hits an emotional chord first, before the thinking brain can take over. Nice to groove on both.