An evening at home with a favourite record, from the opening bars to the song on side two you’d forgotten you loved.
Somewhere on an album you used to play to death is a song you’d struggle to find now. You’ve forgotten the title. You could have a go at singing it, although there’s somebody else in the kitchen and you have to live with them. What you do remember, quite clearly, is that it came straight after the single. Put the album on from the beginning and, just as the single fades, you’ll know whether you were right.
There’s a curious pleasure in knowing music this way. You might have no idea who played the piano, yet you know exactly when to bring your left hand down on the kitchen worktop. You know where the singer draws breath. And somewhere in the years since you last sat through the whole thing, you’ve changed your mind about track four. You used to lift the needle over that one. This evening you rather like it.
Top tips for an evening with an album
- Start with the single you still love. Look up the album it came from and begin at track one. Half the fun is hearing what sort of company your favourite song keeps.
- Choose the original edition for a first listen. The demos, live recordings and alternative takes on a deluxe release will keep for another evening.
- Check that shuffle is off. If you’re streaming, take a second to check what’s queued after the album as well. Some records have a particularly good ending and it’s a shame to miss it.
- Give the music the best seat in the house. Try sitting where you can hear both speakers, or take your headphones to the comfortable chair by the window. The kit you already own will do.
- Pick a job with a quiet middle. An album goes nicely with making supper, particularly once the chopping is done and the onions are on. Save the stick blender for the interval.
- Follow the least obvious part for a verse. Listen to the bass player under a chorus you know well, or to the person singing harmony. Then let your ear go where it likes.
- Look inside the sleeve. Credits can settle a kitchen dispute about whose voice that is, and occasionally lead you to a singer or musician with a whole catalogue of their own.
- Hand the choice to somebody else. Ask for an album they used to play all the way through. You’re much more likely to get an interesting answer than if you ask them to name the greatest record ever made.
- Try one side on a busy evening. Stop at the original break, or pick a track to come back to tomorrow. Nobody is checking whether you sat still for forty minutes.
- Tell the person who put you onto it. A message saying ‘I’d forgotten about that ridiculous drum fill’ is a perfectly good way to get back in touch.
What happens after the song you know?
Consider Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love. You could put on ‘Running Up That Hill’, hear the song you came for and get on with your evening. On the album it’s the opening track. Four songs later you reach ‘Cloudbusting’, with those strings sawing away and a chorus big enough to send you back to the start. On the original LP this is where you get up to turn the record over. You could be forgiven for thinking you’d heard the finale.
Side two opens with a piano and a woman trying to stay awake in the water. ‘And Dream of Sheep’ is the first of seven pieces collectively called The Ninth Wave, and Bush sings the opening lines so softly you might find yourself leaning towards the speaker. Years later, making a film of the song, she sang the vocal live while lying in a water tank at Pinewood Studios. Listen to the studio recording once before you look up the film. It’s interesting to see how much of the scene you had already pictured with just her voice to go on.
Sometimes all it takes to hear a song differently is the two minutes that precede it. On the debut album by The xx, ‘Intro’ gives you a repeating guitar figure and a beat that you could happily let run for a good while longer. Then ‘VCR’ begins, with its little chiming notes and two people singing as though they’re close enough to have the conversation indoors without anybody else hearing. Play ‘VCR’ on its own and you have a lovely song. Hear it through the same speakers immediately after ‘Intro’ and notice how near that first voice seems. You can try the whole experiment while the potatoes boil.
Even the tracks you’d happily have left off can tell you something about a record. Maybe the slow one tucked between two favourites gives you a moment to hear how good the drummer is when scarcely anything is being asked of them. Maybe, after all these years, you still think it was a mistake to give the keyboard player six minutes. You’re allowed to have quite firm views about the editing of an album you adore.
The copy with your name on it
If there’s a box of CDs in the house, look for a case with a name written on it. There was usually a reason for writing it there. Somebody at work wanted to borrow it, or several of you were taking music to the same party and you had experience of arriving home with the wrong half of a double album. Slide the booklet out and have a look at the handwriting. You may remember who borrowed it. If theirs is the name on the case, you may owe somebody an apology.
Researchers Kelly Jakubowski and Anita Ghosh asked 31 people to keep a diary for a week, recording the personal memories that came to them when they heard music. On average, participants recorded one such memory a day. Plenty turned up in the course of housework or travelling, which will sound familiar to anyone who has been halfway through the washing-up and suddenly remembered the curtains in a flat they haven’t set foot in for twenty years.
The detail that comes back can be gloriously beside the point. A record you associate with a first love might conjure up their younger brother, who kept knocking on the door to ask for his tape back. Equally, you can discover you’ve fallen out of love with the album itself. The lyrics you wrote so carefully on the cover of an exercise book are a bit much now. But there’s a guitar part towards the end that you barely registered then, and you want to hear it again. That’s one reason to play the copy with your name on it. You get to bring your present taste along.
When it’s somebody else’s turn
There’s a particular intimacy in being handed the controls in somebody else’s sitting room.
They’ve asked you to put something on, and suddenly every record you own seems either too obvious or an unreasonable thing to inflict on a friend after dinner. An easier invitation is to ask for the album they played in their first flat, or the one that got them through a summer job. People who freeze at ‘What sort of music are you into?’ can generally remember what was on in the stockroom.
Once it’s playing, let the conversation go where it wants. The person who chose the record may spend most of the opening track explaining why the shop manager banned it on Saturdays. That story is part of what you came for. Later, they might stop you in the middle of saying something because the backing singers are about to come in and they’d love you to hear them. Hearing what somebody else has been waiting for is one of the nicest things about playing music together.
One evening, give the last track its due. Stay for the bit after the final chorus, when a musician who has been keeping things tidy all night may get a little room to play. See if you remember how it ends. And if the person in the kitchen asks what that last song was called, turn the sleeve over and have a look. You might as well get the name right this time.