A friend and fellow music lover called me today. I told him about a post called the soundtrack of my life that I had promised to write a month ago in Music and memories. In the latter post, I stated:

My first memories of music were songs my father played: old country and western favourites like Hank Williams' Hey, Good Lookin', which was released in 1951 (and, incidentally, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001). When I hear old songs like this one, I can usually remember the words, at least to the first verse and the chorus. "Say hey, good lookin', what you got cookin'? How's about cookin' somethin' up with me?"

My parents had a portable record player with detachable speakers on which they listened to vinyl albums. Among my parents' collection was the Teddy Bear's Picnic, which I loved listening to, using dolls and stuffed animals to represent guests at my picnic.

I also loved listening to the classic Christmas album The Original: Gene Autry Sings Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer & Other Christmas Favourites. The album begins with country legend Gene Autry saying, "Happy holidays, folks, wherever you may be" before launching into the title track, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. Autry's recording of the song hit No. 1 on the U.S. charts the week of Christmas 1949. Some of the songs I learned from the album as a child would become lullabies I would sing to my own children more than 20 years later, especially Up On The Housetop.

Continuing with the holiday theme, every year, we attended (and often performed in) a Christmas concert at the Ferguson Falls Hall. One song that my siblings and I were involved in sometime in the 1970s was the The Twelve Days of Christmas. Each child in our ragtag ensemble was responsible for one of the days of Christmas. I don't remember how the various parts had been divvied up or who made the decisions, but I know that I sang "five golden rings"—as sweetly and loudly as I could—followed by a to-the-point delivery of "four calling birds" by one of my brothers and then an awkward pause until a second brother reluctantly chirped "three French hens" but only after his older brother had elbowed him in the side. This delighted the crowd—all ten times my brother had to do his part.

My brother Greg was the only true musician in the family. While the rest of us learned the obligatory recorder in elementary school and I played clarinet for two years in high school, Greg was gifted with more musical talent than the rest of us put together. The first song I can recall his learning on his guitar was Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water, which was released in 1972. That opening guitar riff always reminds me of Greg. When he passed away in 2019, we learned the extent of his talent and commitment to music, finding many recordings that he had made, playing all the instruments. In his memory card, we included these lyrics from Smoke on the Water: "No matter what we get out of this...I know we'll never forget." As part of my grieving process, I compiled a playlist of songs that Greg loved or would have loved: In memory of Greg...Celebrating.

Greg wasn't the only family member who brought music into our home. Late in the 1970s, my oldest brother went to a discotheque in Ottawa (or, perhaps, Hull) and returned with an extended-play version of Le Freak by Chic (probably a prize of some sort). This 1978 funk disco song reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 list and was named the #3 song of 1979 by Billboard magazine. As I loved anything new, I happily played the album.

Another album that made its way into our house—though its origin eludes me—was The Long Run by the Eagles, released in 1979. My mom loved this album and played it over and over until my brothers told her that they had had enough. Written by Don Henley and Glenn Frey, the title and opening track, The Long Run, was—according to Henley—written in part as a response to press articles that the Eagles were passé, as disco was then dominant and punk was emerging.

While we couldn't always control the music played on the record player in the living room, my sister and I had more autonomy in our bedroom, where we could listen to music on the radio. One summer evening in 1980, about the time the Powder Blues Band broke into the top 40 with the group's song Doin' It Right, we were listening to the radio with the door closed. When Doin' It Right came on, we cranked it up. From her bedroom across the hall, my mother called to us to turn it down. We ignored her. Suddenly, we heard an enormous bang. We screamed and immediately turned off the radio to figure out what had just happened. All we could hear was my mother laughing. When we opened the door to our room, we found one of my mom's wooden clogs lying on the floor, where it had landed after she had thrown it across the hall at our door.

When my sister went off to college, she fell in love with the group Bread and introduced me to its soft rock sounds—songs like Make It with You (1970) and Baby I'm-a Want You (1972). I love the music of the '70s, and would choose that decade if I could listen to only one.

I entered Carleton Place High School in September 1979. One memory I have is of a midday concert in the school's gymnasium. I don't remember who the group was that played for us or why they were at our high school, but I do remember one of the songs they played: a cover of Babe by Styx, which was released in 1979 and became a #1 hit in Canada. When I heard the opening notes of the song, in that pitch black gym save for the purple stage lights on a riser where the band played, I said to myself, "High school is awesome!"

Another thing I loved about high school was that the carrels in the library had headphone jacks into which students could plug headphones provided by the librarian. The music was from CHEZ 106 FM, which had launched in Ottawa in 1977. The station's rock offerings were different from the pop songs I typically heard at home on competing station CFRA. I can recall listening to The Clash's London Calling, which was released in North America in early 1980. I quickly developed a taste for rock music, and CHEZ 106 became my station of choice for years. Some other rock classics from that period that I loved were several songs from AC/DC's 1980 album Back in Black (Back in Black, Hells Bells and You Shook Me All Night Long) and tracks from several Bob Seger albums, including Night Moves (from his 1976 album Night Moves) and Old Time Rock & Roll (from his 1978 album Stranger in Town). Old Time Rock & Roll was a crowd favourite at dances, and I can remember dancing to it in Clayton Hall back in the early '80s.

A common pastime of high schoolers in Carleton Place, and perhaps in all small towns in that period, was to drive around town on Friday and Saturday nights. Whenever I hear Journey's Don't Stop Believin', released in 1981, I get flashbacks to cruising with friends and grabbing food at a late-night restaurant. The lyrics "Just a small town girl | Livin' in a lonely world" resonated with me.

Every time I hear George Thorogood's version of this classic blues song One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer, I am transported back to my French class in high school. One of my classmates knew every word to this song. I can still hear her saying, "I said I know | Everybody funny, now you funny too." I can't remember why that song was playing (or even on what device it was playing) on the day in question, but my friend was singing along to the verses. When the chorus came on, she proceeded to do a sort of strip tease, whipping her jean jacket around her head. It was all fun and games until she knocked the teacher's cup off his desk, sending coffee everywhere.

John Mellencamp's Crumblin' Down was released in October 1983. That winter, I attended a party at a cottage on Mississippi Lake, where the guys who lived there had put up an enormous Christmas tree. They had connected the stereo system to the lights on the tree, which blinked in time with the music. I can still feel the excitement of hearing Mellencamp's Crumblin' Down booming in the cottage with those Christmas lights flashing along with the tune.

As was likely the case for many teens, Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven was always the closeout song for dances at my high school. The 8-minute song was perfect for teens who didn't know how to dance, or preferred to simply sway to the music, or wanted to kiss after a night of tentative advances. Released in 1971, the song is considered one of the greatest rock songs of all time.

1984 took me to Carleton University in Ottawa, where I met new friends and discovered new music. I befriended a girl in my journalism program and, through her, met two guys with whom she had gone to high school. The four of us became fast friends, going out every weekend throughout my second year of university. The most significant musical influence for us was Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms, which was released in 1985. It would go on to sell more than 30 million copies worldwide and to become one of the world's best-selling albums. But back in 1985, it was just our album and the soundtrack of that year for our little quartet. We would sit and listen to the brilliant musicianship of lead guitarist Mark Knofler from the opening bars of So Far Away, the piercing vocals of Sting in the intro to Money for Nothing, and the sounds of war on Brothers in Arms.

In 1987, Simply Red released its second album, Men and Women. The album's opening track, and its first single, The Right Thing, was extremely popular in Ottawa bars, filling the dance floor whenever DJs played it. Listening to the song's driving bass line, raunchy lyrics and highly singable chorus take me back to those nights when we would sing, sway and sweat on the dance floor. Though the song peaked at #11 in the UK, #21 in Canada and #27 in the US, it was clearly a fan favourite. When Simply Red played the National Arts Centre in 1989, it closed the show with The Right Thing, a sign of the track's enduring popularity.

My love affair with Simply Red continued after I graduated from university. Once I had paid off my student loans, I headed to the Audio Centre in Ottawa (chosen because I loved the seemingly unscripted commercials that owner John Banks did on the radio at the time) to purchase my first grown-up stereo system. One of the first CDs I bought was Simply Red's A New Flame, released in early 1989. With its timeless tunes and effortless vocals by Mick Hucknall, the entire album holds up, years later. It was the soundtrack of my summer in 1989. If I had to pick one song from the album to recommend, it would be the title track: A New Flame.

Among the bars we frequented during my university days was the Rainbow Bistro in Ottawa's Byward Market. It was there that I developed a love for the blues. One of my favourite blues artists was Stevie Ray Vaughn. I loved his intelligent guitar playing and, in 1989, bought his album In Step (it would be his last album released in his lifetime). For the most part, In Step is a hard-rocking blues album, until you get to the final track: the exquisite instrumental Riviera Paradise. It could be the song you play while cleaning up after an amazing party. The song was an expression of my musical tastes and a reflection of my growing independence.

It's interesting that most of the songs in the soundtrack of my life are rock songs. New Orleans Is Sinking is no exception. Released by The Tragically Hip on its first full-length studio album, Up To Here, the song reached #1 in Canada and was the group's first to chart in the US. On one occasion, one of my old university chums was over, so I cranked up the song in my apartment. It wasn't long before we heard a knock on the door. Turns out others in the building were not Hip fans (or they just didn't like the loud music). Feeling embarrassed, I turned off my stereo, and my friend and I headed out to a bar.

Choosing The Audio Centre as the place to purchase my stereo would prove to have far-reaching implications. Not only did I become friends with the salesman who had sold me my system but I also became more than friends with one of his colleagues, whom I got to know over several months while popping round the store. In late November 1989, my friend asked me whether he could give my number to his colleague. "How old is he?" I asked, a note of skepticism in my voice. "I think he's 34," my friend replied. I did the math in my head. I was 23—11 years younger, but not an unheard-of age difference. "OK," I said. "You can give him my number." A few days later, the colleague called. On our first date, he invited me to attend The Audio Centre Christmas party. I agreed, not knowing that this would be an overnight affair in Montreal, where the company's head office was located. Despite the initial confusion, I agreed to go through with it. As you may have surmised, my friend's colleague was Chris. Our trip to Montreal on December 9, 1989, would be the start of our romance and our unofficial anniversary date for 30 years until we officially got married on August 4, 2020. On our return trip from Montreal, the couple we had traveled with played David Benoit's CD Every Step of the Way, released in 1988. The standout track for me on this piano-heavy, jazz album was The Key to You, with its fitting lyrics: "All I want to do is be the one inside the world when he finds the key to you."

When we got back to Ottawa on December 10, Chris and I went to his place, where he served as DJ for me, something he had spent many years doing in his youth. The song that stood out for me was David Bowie's Young Americans. Though released almost 15 years prior, the song could have been a brand new track. Chris and I danced around his living room, united in our love of music.