In my opinion, anyway... Just listening to the opening bars of Fleetwood Mac's Albatross took me straight back to the rugby club disco in Newbridge, 1974. No longer in the kitchen in Ravenscourt Park making coffee while listening to Popmaster, I was suddenly stumbling around the sticky Valleys dancefloor, pleasantly intoxicated by more than the music, wrapped around some bloke in loons with a dodgy afro - him, not me, I favoured the Farrah Fawcett-Majors, not to mention the Stevie Nicks, look!
And the reason why I think that music beats taste in the memory evocation stakes is that it is more immediate and often more unexpected. As Proust points out, the sight of the Madeleine doesn't evoke any memories but ...as soon as I had recognised the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom, which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents...
The thing with music is that whereas Proust sees the house and remembers how he used to run errands from it when he tastes the Madeleine, on hearing the opening bars, I suddenly became that teenager, with no flicker of memory separating my coffee-making from my dancing. And, more importantly, not only was I dancing and hearing the music, I was also feeling some of the emotions I used to feel at that stage of the evening. Let's not go there now, as it's way too early in the day for an exploration of teenage angst... But it was certainly a very pleasant interlude in an otherwise mundane task.
However, I'd be fascinated to know what evokes memory in deaf or blind people. And am I alone in thinking that hearing is more powerful than the other senses? Please let me know.
