Writes Haruki Murakami in "Novelist as a Vocation" (Amazon link).
Speaking of notebooks... my other favorite writer, David Sedaris, carries a small notebook everywhere and writes something in it about 10 times a day. In "Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls," we see him explaining his practice to a 7-year-old boy. When he encounters a headline, "Dangerous Olives Could Be on Sale," and writes it down in his "a small Europa-brand reporter’s notebook," the boy asks why, and he says, "It’s for your diary.... You jot things down during the day, then tomorrow morning you flesh them out." Of course, the 7-year-old boy still asks "why?" The reader knows why!
Speaking of memory... I've been working on a Spotify playlist I named "Memory"):
ALSO: Here's the Einstein playlist I made (based on "The story of Albert Einstein and the music he loved"):
The songs need to have something to do with memory and to be things I'd enjoy listening to in sequence... in case you're thinking of making suggestions for my list, which you can see is very small.
Alternatively, tell me what you think Einstein would have on his Spotify playlist.
As for Murakami, I'm picturing this.
Einstein quote about music: "If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music... I get most joy in life out of music."
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Best guess, Einstein would have violin music since he enjoyed playing, and maybe Sloop John B since he was fond of sailing.
Does "memory" need to be in the title of the song? Does the presence of Einstein add points?
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood with his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago with his friend, a jealous monk
I don't have a good reason for it, but I want to believe that Einstein would have a little polka music in his Spotify playlist.
I’ve liked “ It looks like as December Day”. A memory of a lifetime, Willie Nelson also does a good version.
Tom Rush - The Remember Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yN-6PbqAPM
The obvious suggestion would be “The Way We Were” by Barbra Streisand.
When I create a story it becomes its own entity. I've walked away from a story and come back years later. I won't remember specifics but I will remember characteristics. It exists, and I can twirl it about and look at it. I'm not a notepad writer.
Einstein's playlist would be deadmau5 and skrillex.
@khematite
Thanks for the Dylan lyric!
Answer to your question is clearly not. It's easiest to do a song search for titles that include "memory" or "remember," and I did that while initially making my playlist, so I'm most interested in things that are really about memory but the titles don't give that away, like the last 3 songs on my list.
The hardest part is resisting putting things on the list that are about memory but that I don't enjoy enough to want on a list I would actually listen to.
Major extra points for getting another element of the post in there (Einstein).
I am not a note taker either. Ideas are either memorable, or they are worthless.
Writes Haruki Murakami in "Novelist as a Vocation."
Max Weber carried around "a small Europa-brand reporter’s notebook"?
Max Weber, The Vocation Lectures
Originally published separately, Weber's Science as a Vocation and Politics as a Vocation stand as the classic formulations of his positions on two related subjects that go to the heart of his thought: the nature and status of science and its claims to authority; and the nature and status of political claims and the ultimate justification for such claims.
I'm a note taker. I have a lot of ideas and they'll get lost if I don't jot them down.
Not saying they're good ideas (see Pauling, Linus).
I was sure your Murakami Spotify link was going to be this.
For your playlist: Stardust (I like the Nat King Cole version).
Sir Duke: "Looking back on when I was a little nappy headed boy".
I recommend the version by Robert Goulet.
I thought of a couple of memory songs (not that you were necessarily requesting suggestions...)
"Memories", written by Mac Davis, memorably performed by Elvis on his legendary '68 Comeback Special.
"The Times of Your Life," written and recorded by Paul Anka. I believe it may have started as background music for a Kodak commercial.
After reading the title of this post, I immediately assumed this was another one of those feminists complaining about having to buy menstrual products and how govt should provide them to her.
Sedaris writes humorous essays based on his own experiences. He begins with the jotted down notes, enlarges that into a diary entry, and ultimately uses the diary to get to the essay.
Murakami writes long novels. He describes having a lot of material inside him, developing in some mysterious, unknown way, so that there is "a vast, unlimited space" inside him. Then: "Once I am sure that space exists and that I have stockpiled enough energy to fill it, I open the spigots full blast, so to speak, and settle in for the long haul. Nothing can surpass the fullness I experience then. It is a special feeling, one I get only when I am launching a long novel."
For a few years I tried to keep notebooks for my stray ideas, but never got in the habit. Their greatest value has been some of the puns I thought of and had the sense to write down--the act of writing, as we all know, helping retention.
The Prof specifies "things I'd enjoy listening to in sequence."
I don't think I know you well enough.
I know I got up to 400 pages with a lot of padding on my novel, I can send about a 150 page blocks of texts, with maps and another ephemera,
"Serenade in Blue" and "Stardust" would be on my list.
Jerry Lee Lewis's "I can still hear the music in the restroom" just came to mind. I'm in the habit of keeping a to do list on the desktop of my computer. But it's for trivial things I'd forget.
Thanks For the Memory”
I grew up hearing him singing it with substitute lyrics so often on all those variety shows but I’m not sure I ever heard the original version until I looked it up just now. I rather like it!
Another one I’d put on a list like this is In My Life.
Seriously?
It's making it sound like having a notebook to jot down those things that will stress you out is a new thing.
Um, that's the whole point of notebooks?
Once upon a time I followed advice to keep a notepad and pencil on my nightstand. I woke up one morning and found it covered with text — none of which made sense. Random words, intermingled with things that resemble words but not quite. I never bothered with a notepad again.
Unchained Melody
What's that song held together by "it was a very good year"? "When I was seventeen," &c.
Also: "Durham Town," by Roger Whittaker.
"Back in nineteen forty-four
I remember Daddy going out the door;
Mama told me he was goin' to war . . ."
Other verses with other years. All about leaving and loss.
I think of wistful songs about memories of things and people we’ve lost.
Joan Baez:
“Jesse, the floors and the boards,
Recalling your steps
And I remember too..”
Fleetwood Mac:
“Listen carefully to the sound
Of the loneliness of your heartbeat
Drive you mad
In the stillness of remembering
What you had
And what you lost”
The Brothers Four:
“Try to remember when life was so tender
That no one wept except the willow
Try to remember the kind of September
When love was an ember about to billow
Try to remember and if you remember
Then follow follow follow”
Take it from me, it's hard to make a living in the past.
"Your Memory Wins Again" by Skip Ewing
And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart --
High up in the sky
The little stars climb
Always reminding me that we're apart.
You wander down the lane and far away
Leaving me a song that will not die . . .
Love is now the stardust of yesterday
The music of the years gone by.
Sometimes I wonder how I spend the lonely nights
Dreaming of a song --
The melody
Haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration . . .
But that was long ago,
Now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song.
Beside the garden wall, when stars are bright,
You are in my arms --
The nightingale
Tells his fairytale
Of paradise where roses grow . . .
Though I dream in vain
In my heart it will remain
My stardust melody,
The memory of love's refrain.
Underneath the lamp post,
By the barracks gate,
I remember Lily,
And how she used to wait . . .
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