I’ve been thinking about the songs that I grew up with. Some of the songs I grew up with were protest songs, and I didn’t know it. They taught me about justice, freedom and love of country. Then I started thinking about all the influences we have growing up, that we aren’t aware of until much later, if ever.
Where have all the flowers gone – The Kingston Trio
Blowing in the Wind – Peter, Paul and Mary
Blowin’ in the Wind – Joan Baez
This Land is Your Land – Pete Seeger
I thought tonight we might play “books, movies, songs” – at multiple points in our lives. If you’re willing to play, don’t ponder too long, let’s share the first things we think of.
When we’re little – say, ages 3-7
When we’re kids – say 7-13
When we’re in high school
When we’re college age
When we’re done with college, and we’re in grad school or working
………….
I’ll start.
Little: (3-7 years)
books – the bible, Dr. Seuss
movies – Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Lady & the Tramp
songs – Puff the Magic Dragon, Blowin in the Wind, If I had a hammer, America the Beautiful, This Land is Your Land
Kids: (7-13)
books – Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew
movies – Bye Bye Birdie, Sound of Music, West Side Story
songs – Bus Stop, songs from the musicals above, I will follow him
…………
You can copy from this if you like:
Little: (3-7)
books –
movies –
songs –
Kids: (7-13)
books –
movies –
songs –
High School:
books –
movies –
songs –
College:
books –
movies –
songs –
Grad School or Working
books –
movies –
songs –
JPL
One of the books that PBS Masterpiece recommended was Beast in View, by Margaret Millar. I had downloaded it because of the cost, but read it last night. It reads more like a short story, so you can read it by eleven and sleep hours later. It’s a psych thriller but less relevant to today since it was written in the mid fifties. At least I hope less relevant. Today on Youtube I discovered the Hitchcock version, which was totally different. It took me awhile, but I assume it because of the standards at the time. I feel like we are all inchworms. Making small progress, but progress nonetheless.
piratedan
Little: (3-7)
books –
movies – Robin Hood, Bambi, Mary Poppins
songs – Last Train to Clarksville, Daydream Believer
Kids: (7-13)
books – Hardy Boys, HG Wells, Jules Verne
movies – Dirty Dozen, Von Ryan’s Express, The Magnificent Seven
songs – Beatles, Badfinger, Raspberries
High School:
books – Ursula Le Guin
movies – Star Wars, Close Encounters, Animal House, Sixteen Candles
songs – My Sharona, Heart of Glass, More Than a Feeling, Hold The Line
College:
books – Fritz Leiber, Leon Uris, Stephen King
movies – Alien, Buckaroo Banzai, Big Trouble in Little China
songs – What’s So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding, Cruel To Be Kind, Girl Of My Dreams, Starry Eyes
Grad School or Working
books – Lois McMaster Bujold, Glen Cook, Carl Hiaason, David Brin
movies – Notting Hill, Gross Pointe Blank, LOTR, HP
songs – Elvis Costello, They Might Be Giants, Joe Satriani, SCOTS
soga98
Age 3, from radio: Bing Crosby singing “Mexicali Rose”. No idea then what it was about.
WaterGirl
@piratedan: How did I forget the Beatles!!!
WaterGirl
@soga98: I don’t even know what it’s about.
zhena gogolia
My memory isn’t good enough!
But as a child, Bye Bye Birdie (movie and soundtrack) was huge for me. West Side Story too. I thought there was nothing more beautiful in the world than Ann-Margret against that blue background.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t3cBTb3xPc
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
I don’t either!
zhena gogolia
In grad school, I couldn’t get enough of the Marx Brothers. Now I can’t even watch their movies.
WaterGirl
@soga98: @zhena gogolia:
I just googled and found the lyrics, but I still don’t understand the context. Can you fill us in?
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: We didn’t have a house and a yard, we had an apartment (2 apartments made into one) above the local neighborhood tavern we owned. But we did have a rooftop we played on, and we danced to west side story on the roof, and sang all the songs.
debbie
Kids: (7-13)
books – Nancy Drew, Storybook House
movies – Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan (they used to air Mary Martin’s version every year)
songs – toward early teens, Beatles and Stones
High School:
books – Lord of the Flies
movies – Easy Rider
songs – Hendrix, Byrds, Band
College:
books – Herman Hesse, Thomas Mann
movies – Clockwork Orange
songs – Muddy Waters, Mississippi John Hurt, Youngbloods, Neil Young
Working
books – too many
movies – too many
songs – Ramones, Graham Parker, REM
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
Wow, that would be particularly good for “America”!
zhena gogolia
Grad school: Boz Skaggs Lowdown
hueyplong
Feel free to judge. I’m kind of judging myself as I type this.
Little: (3-7)
books – Grinch that Stole Christmas
movies – Cinderella, Wizard of Oz
songs – Beatles
Kids: (7-13)
books – anything with old pictures or dates
movies – Sean Connery Bond movies, still Wizard of Oz
songs – Beatles (esp White Album) and Rolling Stones (liked Gimme Shelter even more than Scorsese did)
High School:
books – 1984, any history, The Jungle
movies – anything old on TV
songs – Rolling Stones, Doobie Brothers, Kool & The Gang, Sly & Family Stone
College:
books – any history (preferably the New Deal era)
movies – Network, Monty Python & Holy Grail, Taxi Driver, The Godfather (re-release), anything at places that showed old movies
songs – add Santana to above
Grad School or Working
books – still any history
movies – Mephisto, Repo Man, Liquid Sky, The Big Sleep
songs – Santana, Dire Straits, BB King
Man, I was a product of my white, suburban upbringing. Usually liked whatever was considered the “druggie” music at the time.
WaterGirl
College:
books – Kurt Vonnegut! Lord of the Rings
movies – Paper Chase, James Bon, Parallax View, Pink Panther, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Network, Star Wars, All the President’s Men
songs – Ramones, Dan Fogelberg, It’s a Beautiful Day
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Yes!
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Oh, yes, you are right about that!
billcinsd
Kids: (7-13)
books – Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, Clifford D. Simak
movies – None
songs – None
High School:
books – The Lord of the Rings
movies – Star Wars
songs – Blue Oyster Cult
College:
books – too many to name
movies – 2nd, 3rd Star Wars
songs – U2, The Clash
Grad School or Working
books – The Night of the Avenging Blowfish
movies – Bandwagon
songs – The Beths, Martha, Old 97s
WaterGirl
I really enjoyed listening to all the songs up top as I searched for them. Were those songs not a big deal to anyone else here?
WaterGirl
@billcinsd: I am trying to remember when my Agatha Christie phase was. Possibly high school.
Brachiator
Little: (3-7)
books – Greek mythology
movies –
songs –
Kids: (7-13)
books – Great Expectations, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Superman and Marvel comics, especially Fantastic Four and X men, Arthurian legends, Robin Hood
movies – (TV more than movies), Lone Ranger, Robin Hood, Leave it to Beaver, the Defenders, The Fugitive, Magnificent Seven, Hercules, Hercules Unchained, Thief of Baghdad
songs – Beatles and Motown
High School:
books – Krazy Kat, speeches of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Invisible Man, Catch-22, Native Son, works of Arthur C Clarke, Andre Norton
movies – Dr No, Seven Samurai, Fistful of Dollars, (TV) Star Trek, The Avengers, Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain, Laugh-In, Smothers Brothers
songs – Fables of Faubus, Hair (cast album), John Coltrane, Alabama, Like a Rolling Stone
College:
books – Dante, The Inferno, A Passage to India, Ulysses, The Bible
movies – Z, Battle of Algiers, Burn!, Shame, A Passion of Anna, Superfly, Shaft, Cotton Comes to Harlem, Apocalypse Now
songs – What’s Going On, Compared to What, Ohio, Alice’s Restaurant, Woody Guthrie catalog, I Shot the Sheriff, Exodus
Grad School or Working
books – Mismeasure of Man
movies – Unbearable Lightness of Being, Lonesome Dove, Three Colors Trilogy, (TV) The Expanse, Foyle’s War
songs – This is Radio Clash, Bombs over Baghdad
Sloane Ranger
OK, I’ll try
3-7 My family didn’t have books in the house so I have no memories of books at this age other than the readers we used at school. I don’t remember going to see films at this age either. I don’t think we could afford it. I too have memories of Puff the Magic Dragon from this time Also, Jesus Loves the Little Children from Sunday School.
7-13 The Hardy Boys, Biggles and anything by Enid Blyton for books. I think my Dad took my brother and me to see the Battle of Britain film when I was this age. We lived in a village so we didn’t see a lot of films. Music was anything by the Beatles or The Who.
Secondary school Lord of the Rings and John Creasey for books. No films. Music, David Cassidy, The Jackson Five.
University I read a lot of different stuff but I don’t remember any favourites. I also don’t remember going to see any films.
Adult New wave and punk for music. Star Wars, Close Encounters, ET for films, Margaret Arlingham and Dorothy L Sayers for books.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator:
How could I have forgotten the Lone Ranger, Robin Hood, Leave it to Beaver, the Defenders, The Fugitive, and my Motown phase!?!
WaterGirl
@Sloane Ranger: I can’t imagine growing up without books when I was small. Do you like to read now?
brokedownbusted
Little: (3-7)
books – little golden books
movies – empire strikes back, poltergeist (unfortunately)
songs – puff the magic dragon, funkytown, beat it
Kids: (7-13)
books – celery stalks at midnight, charlie and the chocolate factory
movies – predator, robocop, american tail
songs – whodini – one love, duran duran the reflex, might as well say the whole 80’s billboard chart
High School:
books – siddhartha, walden autobiography of malcolm x
movies – boyz in the hood, t2, silence of the lambs
songs – ice cube today was a good day, black sheep – choice is yours, pharcyde – passing me by, nirvana -smells like teen spirit
College:
books – fanon wretched of the earth, bobby seale seize the time, bunch of shakespeare
movies – pulp fiction, friday, fear and loathing in las vegas
songs – coup – killy my landlord, goodie mob – cell therapy, smashing pumpkins 1979
brokedownbusted
@WaterGirl: that’s when i had mine, we had a mystery bookstore in town
@WaterGirl: I’m a late 70’s baby and all that stuff was still big in my life in childhood, didn’t want to be redundant
WaterGirl
@brokedownbusted: I would love a mystery bookstore! jealous.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
I watched the Defenders and The Fugitive over my mother’s shoulders. But to this day, I still have some memories of a Defenders episode that dealt with capital punishment. It featured an early amazing performance by Robert Duvall.
Damn. After all these years, thanks to my google Search-Fu, I found information about the episode.
Defenders. Metamorphosis. Season 2, Episode 24
Thanks in part to this episode, I have always thought about questions of justice and fairness in human, not in abstract or theoretical terms. It’s not just about the system working or not working, procedures and tradition. It comes down to a life hanging in the balance.
Sloane Ranger
@WaterGirl: I love to read and my tastes are eclectic. At any time I can be reading a biography, a history, a mystery or a Sci Fi story,sometimes all at once.
My parents both left school at age 15. They were English agrarian working class which meant there was no background for reading other than the Bible and the newspaper
Wag
Little: (3-7)
books – Are You My Mother?, The Cat in the Hat
movies – Jungle Book
songs – Downtown
Kids: (7-13)
books – Hardy Boys, Island of the Blue Dolphins
movies – Young Frankenstein
songs – Rock On
High School:
books – Catch 22
movies – Holy Grail, Apocalypse Now
songs – I Wanna Be Sedated
College:
books – Desert Solitaire
movies – Blade Runner
songs – Love Will Tear Us Apart,
Grad School or Working
books – the Unbearable Lightness of Being
movies – The Princess Bride
songs – Road to Nowhere
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
You said a mouthful. Whole lotta blur.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: I don’t think of it in abstract terms, either. Also because of either a TV show or a movie, though I don’t recall the details.
Glad you found the episode!
WaterGirl
@Wag: I’ll see your The Cat in the Hat and raise you The Cat in the Hat Comes Back!
Brachiator
@Sloane Ranger:
I realize that I may stumble and even not understand this well, but I always get the impression that there is a significant distinction between working class and middle class in the UK.
In the US middle class more or less includes blue collar workers.
And I don’t fully understand all the implications of this, but I was watching a UK game show in which Steph McGovern was one of the panelists. I understand she is a presenter or news anchor on some tv shows on business and that she has a deep maths background. But I was reading that she gets put down because of her accent.
Anyway, all this is a bit of an aside.
WaterGirl
@Sloane Ranger: My mom grew up poor in Wyoming and had to quit school at 10 to work. She was super smart, self-taught. I always wondered how her life would have turned out if her beginnings hadn’t been so hard.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
Anything Peter, Paul, and Mary sang was big for me.
Sloane Ranger
@Brachiator: Yes. In the UK, specifically England, working class refers to blue collar workers,basically anyone who works with their hands. Middle class would include professionals such as solicitors (lawyers), businesses people and office workers. Upper class would be the gentry and aristocracy (major landowners).
Peolle initially judge your position on the social scale by your accent. A strong regional accent indicates working class, standard received (BBC) English equals middle class, very clipped accent used to indicate upper class but this has changed recently as more and more upper class people affect an estuary English accent.
To get an idea, contrast an early speech from the Queen, compare with how she speaks today, how Prince Charles speaks and how Prince William speaks.
Sloane Ranger
@WaterGirl: She sounds like an outstanding woman. There is a long tradition of working class people seeking to improve themselves through education in the UK. Trade Unions were very important in this process through things like the Workers Educational Association but agricultural workers weren’t strongly unionised and missed out on these opportunities
I don’t object. My father did very well, starting on the shop floor, he retired as a senior manager in his company. But,until he became salaried, he brought his pay packet home, unopened for my mother to divvy out for the bills. ?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
WaterGirl, either you are my age, which I find hard to believe (born in the late ’50s) or you just had old-fashioned tastes growing up.
Little: (3-7)
books – definitely Dr. Seuss
movies – Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, The King and I
songs – aside from songs from the above movies, my Mom liked to play from this huge book of children’s songs: Froggy went a-Courtin’, Comin’ Round the Mountain, Billy Boy, Oh Susannah, and others too numerous to mention. And also Dixie for some reason.
Kids: (7-13)
books – I discovered the juvenile sci-fi at school and the public library. Eureka! The Robert Heinlein juveniles, Wrinkle in Time, Phantom Tollbooth. And around age 11 I discovered “The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction” and I was lost.
movies – Drawing a blank here. We’re talking 1965-1970, but I was still a kid and not the type of kid who sneaked into R movies. So what would I have seen? “Green Beret” is the only Vietnam movie I remember. My Dad was big on WW2, so lots of WW2 movies when they showed on TV. “Guns of Navarone”, “Bridge over the River Kwai”, “Great Escape”, “Dirty Dozen”.
songs – mostly the AM Top 40 from that era. Being AM, a lot of the best stuff was truncated or talked over (the DJs especially seemed to hate long instrumentals). More of the pop stuff than hard rock. Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Carpenters, Carly Simon, Jim Croce, Joni Mitchell. Hard for me to put specific years on a lot of these memories, but I think high school was more musical so I’ll complete the list there..
High School:
books – Lots and lots of classic sci-fi, especially Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke. Read lots of anthologies too. Consumed entire shelves at the library. This was also my brief Ayn Rand period, though even while I was nodding my head at a lot of “Atlas Shrugged” I was also rolling my eyes a lot.
movies – From theaters: The Sting, Jaws, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. TV: Was too young to be a hippy but started absorbing hippie philosophy from popular culture about then: Joe (first exposure to Peter Boyle), a TV movie nobody else might remember called “Tribes” about hippie meets the Marines in basic training. Probably many others I can’t remember.
songs – I think this is when I started really falling in love with all things Motown. Too numerous to mention, but basically everything that came out of Detroit. And AM radio stations started putting “oldies” into their playlists, so I got exposed to a lot of great stuff from the early 60s, including The Supremes and a lot of earlier doo-woop stuff that I also adored.
Somewhere in here, high school or college, is Creedence Clearwater Revival, Crosby, Stills & Nash (& Young), Hall & Oates, Loggins & Messina.
College:
books – Discovered a whole new group of sci-fi authors: LeGuin, Leigh Bracket, Zelazny, Varney. Harlan Ellison and “Dangerous Visions” 1 & 2 and all the authors he exposed me to there. Also via anthologies discovered a lot more Golden Age authors. Discovered Stephen King later, with “Graveyard Shift” being the first thing I read.
The rest of the list is just too varied and too long for me to remember. I can tell you some things I somehow managed not to discover: I remember in college a friend tried to introduce me to this musician who was “the most amazing poet you ever heard”. He was kind of offended when I was sort of lukewarm on listening to the album. That musician’s name was Bob Dylan, something like that. Wonder what ever became of that guy, whether he ever got famous?
Another one was Queen. Their songs were everywhere, and I knew and mostly liked them, but was somehow not aware of them as a band and didn’t know till years later that they were responsible for a couple songs I was singing all the time. I guess music was mostly background noise and I was not concentrating on hearing the names of artists.
Disco was very big about the time I met and married my wife. I won’t name names, I think if I just say “disco” you get the picture. Still have a fondness for the Pointer Sisters though.
I loved PP&M but only discovered them on being introduced to their old stuff by my wife.
WaterGirl
@Sloane Ranger: My parents owned their own business, so she did fine, and was on the city council and the planning commission and all sorts of other things. Definitely a woman before her time. I didn’t appreciate that when I was young.
Everybody else’s mom was stay-at-home, and made their lunches, and baked and all that traditional mom stuff.
Minstrel Michael
Wow, could I go on about this…
Little: (3-7)
books – I was into fairy tales and Greek mythology. I got hold of a couple of the Mary Poppins collections (she was a martinet in the stories, nothing like Julie Andrews) and they were awesome, magic in a Muggles world. And when I discovered Dr. Seuss I was a very happy camper indeed!
movies – TV used to show The Wizard of Oz every Christmas season, and I remember at age 4 being really scared when the Wicked Witch on her broom was skywriting “Surrender Dorothy!” PBS also screened Amahl and the Night Visitors every year, and I miss that nowadays.
songs – My parents had a couple hundred LPs in the 1950s, half Broadway (I liked West Side Story, South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Kismet, The King and I) and half classical (my mom played the piano and was big into the Russians; I liked Stravinsky’s Firebird, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet and 1812, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade. Also Beethoven’s Sixth (Pastorale), Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and Ravel’s Bolero. I was aware of Peter, Paul and Mary, but I preferred the Kingston Trio.
Kids: (7-13)
books – Heinlein and Asimov
movies – Back then I loved cartoons: Popeye, Bugs Bunny, Rocky & Bullwinkle
songs – I was ten years old when the Beatles played on Ed Sullivan. Seeing that changed my life– that was the kind of music I could claim for my own! My birthday was the next month, and I harangued my folks into getting me a guitar. They were amenable as long as I actually practiced (I’d already bailed on piano and trumpet lessons). In three months I knew the root position chords, in another three months I was more or less able to play barre chords (this was a nylon string guitar), and I wore out my copy of Meet the Beatles trying to learn the songs (picking up the tone arm and putting it back to the beginning to hear the chord changes). When the Beatles went soft in 1965 I got into the Rolling Stones, then the Byrds.
High School:
books – Vonnegut. Tolkein. Eugene O’Neill. More sci-fi.
movies – 2001. The Graduate. In the Heat of the Night. Spy stuff– I loved James Bond, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and, um, Get Smart.
songs – Jefferson Airplane. The Who. Cream. Simon and Garfunkel. Fairport Convention. Traffic. (Those last two played a double bill at the Boston Tea Party in 1970 which I still consider one of the best concerts I ever saw. 1970 was also the only *good* Grateful Dead show I saw live.)
College:
books – John Brunner. Roger Zelazny. Samuel Beckett.
movies – Damned if I remember anything, other than 200 Motels.
songs – I discovered prog rock: Yes, ELP, King Crimson, Genesis. I dropped out and submitted a writing sample to the youth culture weekly paper and they took me on as a music reviewer, and I tried to propagandize for music in odd time signatures. Also started listening to real jazz– McCoy Tyner was brilliant in the 70s.
Grad School or Working
books – David Brin. Joe Haldeman. William Gibson. Thomas Pynchon.
movies – I don’t keep up. I watch old stuff– I’d rather see Meet John Doe than any Star Wars or comic book blockbuster.
songs – Tried to join good bands and make records, even if we had to pay for them ourselves. I did get to play in one band that actually signed with an indie label and put out a CD (although they didn’t put up all the money; I was employed at the time and put up $5000 to finish the sessions).
zhena gogolia
@Minstrel Michael:
Wow, great comment.
J R in WV
I read Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys and Tom Swift, boy genius books as a very young kid. My mom took us to see all the Vincent Price / Boris Karloff / Peter Lorre movies as a little kid, monsters, evil doers receiving their comeuppance, and on TV we watched Greek Hero movies, Hercules type shows.
By Junior High I had found Robert Heinlein, A E Van Vogt, EE “Doc” Smith etc. and never looked back. Music, my dad was a huge classical music supporter, so we were to concerts by touring chamber orchestras, pianists, The Red Army Band, a huge variety of stuff.
In college I was lucky enough to be invited to go up to Rhode Island for the Newport Folk Festival in 1968, which was mostly Blues that year. From elderly solo blues folks from the delta, in their 80s and 90s back in ’68, so born in the 19th century on plantations, all the way to Janice Joplin and her all white blues band. I still have my program, but finding it would take a week. Here’s a partial list from Wikipedia: 1968: Big Brother and the Holding Company, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, B.B. King, Joni Mitchell, Arlo Guthrie, Taj Mahal, Ralph Stanley, Elizabeth Cotten, Roy Acuff, Theodore Bikel, Tim Buckley, George Hamilton IV, Jerry Merrick, Janis Ian, Buell Kazee, Eric Von Schmidt, Doc Watson, Mimi Fariña, Jim Kweskin, Fred McDowell, Joe Heaney, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, John Hartford… I removed most of the links so this would post.
Now we listen to a lot of music on WV public radio, which hosts Mountain Stage, we have a lot of friends who play old time mountain folk music, John Prine, Youtube performances, when the Trump Plague recedes we’ll resume attending WV Symphony concerts and shows at the Clay Center, where we have seen Tedschi Trucks, Buddy Guy, Mellissa Etheridge, Gov’t Mule, just a ton of great shows. Lucinda Williams is a great singer/songwriter from Texas.
Speaking of Texas, I like a lot of Texas performers, from Willy Nelson to Townes Van Zandt, Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys, Waylon Jennings, all the way to ZZ Top, who still rock the world!
ETA: Sorry I didn’t follow a pattern past starting long ago and working my way forward. My dad founded the first FM station in the state, and it was mostly classical and big band music, and lots of it was live, in southern West Virginia in the late 1940s and ’50s. Imagine that!
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@WaterGirl: my Agatha Christie phase started in junior high school and never stopped. Although in rereading now it is to watch how she hides the “true facts” right in front of you, merrily waving red herrings all the while.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@J R in WV: Your comment and others remind me of many things I left off my own list. It’s just too much to remember.
I read a LOT of Hardy Boys as well. Turned my nose up at Nancy Drew as “girl stuff” but did read Bobbsey Twins.
Also somewhere in there I had a big Dr. Doolittle phase. And when my little sister got into The Black Stallion, I read all of that collection. About that age I read a lot of other animal stories.
I also see Vonnegut and Agatha Christie mentioned. I definitely had big phases with both authors. Vonnegut in college I think, and Christie later.
WaterGirl
It’s been a fairly quiet thread for a Sunday night thread, but I’m enjoying seeing what everyone is putting up.
It’s so interesting to see that some of these things are timeless.
TomatoQueen
Little: (3-7)
books – All of Dr Seuss, a family friend, the Wizard of Oz, Charlotte’s Web, English children’s literature
movies – Mary Poppins,, other Disney & other traditional kid movies, 101 Dalmatians
songs – Burl Ives Big Rock Candy Mountain, Puff, The Fireside Book of Songs
Kids: (7-13)
books – juvenile fiction, ancient myths, children’s classics until age 9 when modern novels started: Exodus was the first
movies – very little movie going at this age
songs- getting ready for the Xmas concert, Beatles
–
High School:
books –whatever was on offer, all the classics, TS Eliot a revelation, a first lingering interest in biography
movies – The nostalgia era, so all of WC Fields, the Marx Bros, Mae West, a first viewing of Casablanca
songs – Rock and Roll. New Orleans Jazz. Concert choir repertory. All of Tom Lehrer.
College:
books – a hundred Great Books, plus Lord Peter and whatever speculative fiction I could find. Dune.
movies – Whatever was playing at the art house where a friend worked box office, plus The Sting
songs –If Bob Dylan, John Hartford, Steve Goodman, John Prine, John McLaughlin, McCoy Tyner issued it, I listened to it. Oscar Brand. Doc Watson. Bonnie Raitt.
grad school, working
books-everything else
movies–Casablanca. The rest is commentary.
songs–lately there are two: Jacob’s Ladder, iteration Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Gospel Plow, iteration Bob Dylan, both of which are of enormous comfort in these times.
formatting went kerflooey
Sloane Ranger
I’d forgotten the Soul and Tamla disco every Tuesday night at Uni and listening to Val Doonican and, I hate to admit this, knowing what I know now, Rolf Harris songs when I was at Primary school (5-11)
It’s near 2 30am here so turning out the lights and going to sleep. See you in the morning.
Miki
Little: (3-7)
books – Harold and the Purple Crayon
movies – Bambi
songs – Rosemary Clooney singing Me and My Teddy Bear
Kids: (7-13)
books – Narnian Chronicles, Harriet the Spy
movies – Sound Of Music
songs – Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto
High School:
books – Catch 22, Steal This Book, Trout Fishing in America
movies – The Point, Harold and Maude
songs – Sweet Baby James, Fire and Rain, Natural Woman, 25 or 6 to 4
College:
books – The Sound and the Fury, Gravity’s Rainbow, On the Road
movies – The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds, Don’t Look Now
songs – Free Man in Paris
Grad School or Working
books – See Under: Love
movies – ?
songs – Smooth Operator, Braham’s Fourth
Wyatt Salamanca
@WaterGirl:
I like Peter, Paul, and Mary and second your choices.
When you have time, check out their appearance on the Jack Benny program, I found it very funny. Kudos to Benny for inviting them on his show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awMr40OZ5fA
Joan Baez is my second favorite female vocalist, Joni Mitchell will always be number one for me.
J R in WV
I have to confess, I hated Ms Poppins, Sound of Music, much of that treacle type stuff.
The Russian composers, on the other hand, are still favorites. We go to bed listening to a mix CD with a dozen albums of classical music, from Bach and Beethoven to Rachmaninoff. This helps us to deal with the tinnitus from years of tools sounds and loud R&R, plus I like to target shoot.
Now I wear serious hearing protection when shooting or chain sawing, but as a kid none of that was even invented yet…
ETA: Bonnie Raitt, what a gift. How could I not mention her? And Judy Collins, we saw her in a tiny room in NYC, as close as a family dinner.
Jay Noble
Little: (3-7)
books – Little Golden Books, Reader’s Digest World’s Best Loved Fairy Tales, Reader’s Digest Worl’s Best Loved Books. I was rather shocked as I learned to read that the stories weren’t the ones I thought they were.
movies – Not a whole lot stands out by itself because I saw everything my young parents wanted to see and pretty much grew up in movie theatres and Drive-ins. So – Disney, Westerns, Hammer Horror and Elvis. Those last two I blame for my “ideal woman look”.
songs – If you put on a classic Country & Western tune from 1960-1970, I can probably sing it word for word. Another of those parent defined things but there was plenty of Rock in there too (See Elvis).
Kids: (7-13)
books – I read just about anything I could get my hands at this age much to the chagrin of my Mom when I found her True Story and True Romance magazines. Yes I would sit down with a random letter from the 20 year set of enclopdedias we had.
movies – The Andromeda Strain, Planet of the Apes series, American Graffiti, Young Frankenstein, More Disney but it was more live action now along the lines of The Love Bug and family friendly stuff from other studios.
songs – Hello Bubble Gum Rock! The Jackson 5, The Osmonds, The Defranco family. ABBA, Carpenters, Tanya Tucker.
High School: ’75-’79
books – I wasn’t much into books but I read magazines voraciously. “What is out there in the real world outside of podunk Sidney, Nebraska?” Thanks to school’s library and the public library, I had a huge window. We even had Ebony, when there were maybe 10 Black folks in our county
movies – Rollerball, The Summer Blockbuster era Arrives with Jaws.
songs – Disco, Pop, Soft Rock, R&B just about anythinhg that wasn’t country or heavy metal. Albums were a bug deal from Bat Out of Hell to Rumors and all the K-tel stuff.
College: ’79-‘mumble mummble ok ’87
books – I discover Sci Fi and Fantasy. Dune, Thomas Covenant series, Foundation series, and so on.
movies – The Wannsee Conference, Xanadu, Blade Runner, Rocky Horror, Animal House, Caddyshack
songs – MTV takes over the world. This shows in a curious way in my music collection. If it’s pre-MTV, I have music on CD’s, Cassettes, Vinyl and yes even an 8-track tape. After MTV music, I have DVDs. Purple Rain, Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, We Are The World, Billy Jean . . . Pop, Soft Rock, R&B and Soul.
Grad School or Working – Not much change from college
books – Spend a great deal of time trying to avoid anything that is going to be more than 6 books.
movies – Wonder Woman and Black Panther lived up to their expectations spectacularly. Se7en, The Passion of the Christ – Films I’m glad I saw but may never watch again because they left me so drained. Films I saw with the intended audience – Romeo + Juliet (1996), tween and teen girls and Mama Mia – – tween and teen girls and starkers fans. The teen girls singing along made me laugh out loud. None of them had been born when the last ABBA album was released.
songs – Meghan Trainor’s stuff is about all that’s gotten through to me in the last 10 years. Christina Aguilerra and Britney Spears before that and Shania Twain before that. Leave me Breathless – the Corrs
Along with the inabilty to wear headphones or earbuds for more than a few minutes, Rap and hip hip pretty much ended my contemporay music listening.
Lacuna Synechdoche
Little: (3-7)
books – The Golden Palomino (Might have Pony instead of Palomino)
movies – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Charlotte’s Web, Abbott and Costello
tv – Star Trek
songs – Beatles, Olivia Newton-John, John Denver, The Four Tops, The Mamas and Papas, Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel
Kids: (7-13)
books – Hardy Boys, Three Investigators, Dark Is Rising series, Chonicles of Prydain, Mabinogion, Asimov, Heinlein,
movies – Star Wars, Caesar and Cleopatra, Star Trek, Animal House, His Girl Friday, Andy Hardy movies, The Philadelphia Story
songs – Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Donna Summer, Steve Miller Band, Elton John, Bee Gees
High School:
books – Tolkien, George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Donald Barthelme, TS Eliot, WH Auden, Brett Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney; Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid …
movies – Empire Strikes Back, Poltergeist, ET, Porky’s, Alien, Hitchcock, Jonathan Demme (Melvin & Howard), Steven Spielberg, John Huston, Howard Hawks, Bill Forsyth, Neil Jordan
songs – REM, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, Laurie Anderson, Squeeze, Richard Thompson, Lou Reed, Rickie Lee Jones, Blondie, Ramones, Bruce Springsteen, and so on …
College:
books – Milan Kundera, WB Yeats, Shaw, Jorge Luis Borges, Henry Fielding, more Barthelme, 18th C. British Literature in general, Richard Feynman …
movies – Stop Making Sense, Something Wild, Vertigo, more Hitchcock, David Lynch, Coen Brothers, Robert Altman, Stanley Kubrick, Terry Gilliam, David Cronenberg, Tim Burton, Todd Haynes …
songs – Replacements, more REM, more Talking Heads, The Smiths, Tom Waits, Beastie Boys, Prince, Thomas Dolby, Bauhaus, New Order, Joy Division, Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, Joni Mitchell, Brian Eno, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Husker Du, Van Morrison, Robyn Hitchcock, English Beat …
tv – Cosmos
Grad School or Working
books – Icelandic Sagas, Jennifer Egan, Dorothy Parker, MFK Fischer, Lester Bangs, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, Eduardo Galeano, Salman Rushdie, Seamus Heaney, Anne Carson, Harry Potter series
movies – Hal Hartley, Jean Luc Godard, Kurosawa, Alain Resnais, Fellini, Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Hollis Frampton, Andrei Tarkovsky, more Demme, more Hitchcock, more Huston, more Hawks, Richard Linklater, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarentino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Sophia Coppola, Wes Anderson, Guy Maddin, MCU …
songs – Pavement, Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, Neko Case, Eminem, Yo La Tengo, Grimes, Wilco, Beck, Liz Phair, Belle & Sebastian, Sleater-Kinney, Magnetic Fields, StereoLab, St. Etienne, St. Vincent …
TV: Buffy, X-Files, Deadwood …
… And so much more.
James E Powell
I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone’s lists. I will go back over them more carefully later.
If I tried to list even a tenth of everything that mattered, I’d never get it done. So, for each item, each time period, I named just one that really impacted me at the time and that I still think about now.
Little: (3-7)
books – Dr. Seuss, On Beyond Zebra
movies – Billy Budd
songs – The Lion Sleeps Tonight – The Tokens
Kids: (7-13)
books – Lord of the Rings
movies – Cool Hand Luke
songs – Get Off My Cloud, Rolling Stones
High School:
books – Catch-22
movies – Little Big Man
songs – Honky Tonk Women, Rolling Stones
Four years between high school & college
books – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
movies – Blazing Saddles
song – Street Life, Roxy Music
College:
books – Zorba the Greek
movies – Apocalypse Now!
songs – Precious, The Pretenders
Law School:
books – The Unbearable Lightness of Being
movies – This is Spinal Tap
songs – Radio Free Europe, REM