but not out the other... Amazing how our brain stores stuff and associates emotions with triggers.

In my family, the first car and stereo radio was bought about 1980 or 81; it was a Grundig synthesizer tuner with some LED blinkenlights and must have cost father a fair bit of cash then (That very radio was honourably recycled for parts this easter... pretty good build-quality!). I still distinctly remember when we installed it in our Citroen GS (one of many over the years) and being delighted at hearing music, well, stereophonically. What a novelty!

We usually paid the grandparents and other relatives in Tirol quite some extended visits every year, which meant a 5+hr drive and always some stress and arguments beforehand. My father had some music cassettes that were very dear to him, one of which was Baden Powell'sTristeza on Guitar. On those trips, we heard that cassette over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Not sure if my sisters and I were damaged by this experience ;-), but affected? Most certainly!

Every time I hear Canto de Xango, Canto de Ossanha, Round about Midnight or Manha de Carnaval I get a very melancholic feeling/flashback of coming home: all of these are indelibly associated with the Wiener Westeinfahrt (the end of the A1 motorway at Wien-Auhof), which has street lights a couple of kilometers outside the city limits. Usually we arrived there late at night, with the lights presaging home. Very strange, and a weird feeling even now, almost 20 years after the last such trip and 15000km away.

Guess what I had in the car radio this weekend when driving to Killarney. Right. It's one example of music that became Very Special to me.