By Shiv Sidecar
Your memory is not always your friend. Sooner or later it will deceive you, and make you wrongly believe that you have seen or experienced sensations or actual events, or it will unexpectedly and repeatedly bring fragments of your past to the forefront of your mind. Some of these may come from our imaginations, but often our senses act as triggers for our memories, inducing déjà vu. In music, we frequently hear melodies and motifs which recall imaginary or buried moments from our pasts, with associated memories (or perhaps it’s just a case of lazy songwriters reworking those overworked notes…). And, of course, déjà vu has been a popular subject for songs.
Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, some singers see their lives as a recurring lifestyle loop – déjà vu all over again. “I think I kind of lost myself again… day, yesterday… It feels like I’ve been here before…” sings Sarah Jay Hawley on Massive Attack’s futuristic Dissolved Girl. The song’s best known for its use in The Matrix, but the outstanding video here uses images from the film Immortel Ad Vitam (currently on YouTube). Swedish singer Molly Nilsson is hanging around in a bar, awaiting a friend and slowly realising that everything she sees she has seen before. Suddenly it clicks – she’s having a déjà vu about a déjà vu… Meanwhile, Charlotte Gainsbourg hymns doomed poet Sylvia Plath as she sleepwalks through daily routines – work, transport, socks. Sylvia says: “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again.”
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, as John Fogerty knows too well. He was drafted to Vietnam in 1966 (although eventually served his time in the US). His 2004 song Déjà Vu (All Over Again) was prompted by America’s military involvement in Iraq. As with his best Creedence songs, Fogerty writes from a common man’s perspective, and avoids berating politicians. According to Wikipedia, J J Jackson is a “belter”, defined as a “high chest voice”. His It Seems Like I’ve Been Here Before is an outstanding, intense performance.
Messing around with time inevitably brings paradoxes. More rampant guitars, and confusions about time, on The Yardbirds’ definitively psychedelic Happenings Ten Years Time Ago - singer Keith Relf is wishing that his déjà vu could be real. The couplet “It seems to me that I’ve been here before, the sounds that I heard and the sights that I saw” also hints at the possibility of reincarnation. Being born again is the topic of Pearls Before Swine’s lightly lysergic Another Time – “Have you come by again to die again? Well, try again - another time”. (Tom Rapp, who is the sole constant member of PBS, claims that he has no idea what any of his songs are about).
Déjà vu can be specific, or it can be frustratingly vague. Mike Scott’s I’ve Lived Here Before (credited to his band The Waterboys) is about a house, but with no context: “No, I cannot put a name upon it, which was where and when – yet here I am, a perfect stranger – home again”. John Lennon’s stately #9 Dream seems to record half-remembered sensations (heat, rain, sound) which suggest something more intense than a mere dream. (Sounds as though Lennon had been listening to his ex-bandmate George). And opinion at the Bar seemed to be in favour of honouring another ex-Mersey skiffle band The Searchers, who (not for the first time) announced their last ever gig, at the recent Glastonbury Festival. Their gender-swapped take on Jackie DeShannon’s When You Walk In The Room highlights their distinctive Rickenbacker guitar sound (played by last original member John McNally). The singer never wins the girl, but he’s doomed to seeing her untouchable loveliness again and again.
So sorry – this list ends with a couple of downers. Mark Linkous (aka Sparklehorse) has a reverse déjà vu experience, dreaming that he is in an unfamiliar room. Six months later, he is in that actual room. There’s bereavement and comfort for his friend, now the most beautiful widow in town. It’s a gutwrencher. Something which will resonate with many is the loss of a parent or other loved one to the hell of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, where the boundary between reality and déjà vu is uncertain, and eventually lost. Chocolate Genius commemorates his mom, who seems to remember him, but “my sweet mom, she don’t remember my name… she can’t remember my name”. Nothing to do, but rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Aready Apparent A-List Playlist:
Massive Attack – Dissolved Girl
Molly Nilsson – Whiskey Sour
Charlotte Gainsbourg – Sylvia Says
John Fogerty – Déjà Vu (All Over Again)
JJ Jackson – It Seems Like I’ve Been Here Before
The Yardbirds – Happenings Ten Years Time Ago
Pearls Before Swine – Another Time
The Waterboys – I’ve Lived Here Before
John Lennon - #9 Dream
The Searchers – When You Walk In The Room
Sparklehorse – Most Beautiful Widow In Town
Chocolate Genius – My Mom
Felt Before B-List Playlist:
Angelo Badalamenti – Theme from Twin Peaks
Crosby Stills Nash & Young* – Déjà Vu [*nb. Neil Young isn’t on this track…]
Sharon van Etten & Angel Olsen – Like I Used To
Bill Ryder-Jones – This Can’t Go On
Styx – Haven’t We Been Here Before
Redd Kross – Yesterday Once More
Sublime – Scarlet Begonias
Dionne Warwick – Déjà Vu
Prince Royce & Shakira – Déjà Vu
Wet Leg – Angelica
Lush – I’ve Been Here Before
Margaret Glaspy – Irish Goodbye
Toro y Moi – Déjà Vu
Roky Erickson – I Have Always Been Here Before
Hüsker Dü – Reoccurring Dreams
Vu-list Playlist:
Songs which triggered memories for posters (see topic blog for posts)
Blind Alfred Reed – Beware [Tarquin Spodd]
Hitsujibungaku – Carol [ajostu]
The Stylistics – Sing Baby Sing [pejepeine]
Max Webster – A Million Vacations [tincanman2010]
The Yardbirds – Happenings Ten Years Time Ago [see A-list] [AltraEgo]
Chocolate Genius – My Mom [see A-list] [tincanman2010]
Guru’s Wildcard Z-List:
(had he been choosing this week)
Michael Chapman – Wrecked Again
Gilmore & Roberts – Travelling in Time
Vashti Bunyan – Here Before
Fever Ray – Here Before [cover of Vashti]
Buzzcocks – Sixteen Again [“Sixteen” was a different song on their previous album]
The Who – In A Hand Or A Face
Taylor Swift – We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
Charlotte Gainsbourg
These playlists were inspired by readers' song nominations in response to last week's topic: Seems familiar, but ... it's songs about and inducing déjà vu. The next topic will launch on Thursday after 1pm UK time.
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